From Stores Of Memory

9 B121-2

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BERKOWITZ ENVELOPE CO., K. 0.* MO.

4*,>* J'

DEC 7 1

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

BACHELLER

THE MASTER OF SILENCE

THE STILL HOUSE OF o'DARROW

EBEN HOLDEN

D'RI AND i

BARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES

VERGILIUS

SILAS STRONG

THE HAND MADE GENTLEMAN

THE MASTER
KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE

CHARGE IT
THE TURNING OF GRIGGSBY

MARRYERS

THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING

KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM

A MAN FOR THE AGES

THE PRODIGAL VILLAGE

IN THE DAYS OF POOR RICHARD

THE SCUDDERS
FATHER ABRAHAM

DAWN A LOST ROMANCE OF THE TIME OF CHRIST

COMING UP THE ROAD THE STORY OF A NORTH COUNTRY BOYHOOD

THE HOUSE OF THE THREE GANDERS

A CANDLE IN THE WILDERNESS

THE MASTER OF CHAOS

UNCLE PEEL

THE HARVESTING

THE OXEN OF THE SUN

A BOY FOR THE AGES
FROM STORES OF MEMORY

OM STOE

BY

IRVING BACHELLER

FARRAR & RINEHART

INCORPORATED

NEW YORK : : TORONTO

MA 7

COPYRIGHT, 1538, BY IRVING BACHELLER *

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC,, RAHWAY, N. J,
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The author makes grateful acknowledgment of
the help rendered him by Theodore Bolton, Libra-
rian of the Century Club, in finding many arti-
cles written for magazines and newspapers in the
last thirty-seven years and relating to different
phases of the life herein described.

INTRODUCTION

A Word About Bacheller from His Friend
Hamlin Garland

IRVING BACHEIXER is a typical American. OB both sides
of the family fireplace his people are of deep-rooted race,
industrious, intellectual, God-fearing, and self-respecting.
His sires were among those who conquered the New
World forests, plowed its granite hills and drained its
swamps. Born in a clearing in St. Lawrence County, New
York State, this novelist not only keeps his native land in
memory: he has put it imperishably into American fiction.
In his poems and stories you may find the finest types and
the best traditions of "The North Country/'

Personally he is at once very strong and very gentle.
Big of frame, slow-motioned yet athletic, he is a hand-
some and winning figure. His blond hair and mustache are
now gray, but he retains his boyish smile and an absent-
minded gentleness which must have been his most distinc-
tive youthful characteristic. He has no hate of any man
except of him who would wrong a child or dishonor a
woman. He is too strong and too generous to have any*
petty animosities.

He is a home lover. He loves old-fashioned ballads,
and sings them with a fine appreciation of their tender or
heroic sentiment. A broad fireplace is his altar, a group of
his friends his church. His conversation is never mean or
careless or bitter. Everybody likes him, and yet he has few
friends to whom he unfolds himself. His absent-minded

vu

Vlll INTRODUCTION

glance, though smiling, does not invite intimacy; his pre-
occupation is very real. I have never known a kindlier
nature than his.

As an orator he is notably successful. His voice,
rather high in key, is pleasant and far-reaching, and a
slightly drawling utterance lends appealing individuality
to his eloquence. He always has something worth listen-
ing to,

His absent-mindedness is most entertaining to his
friends but a serious matter to his wife. His paths are
strewn with forgotten rubber shoes, silk umbrellas, and
fur-lined overcoats. He is not to be trusted to bring home
a package or to catch a train, and yet he has managed to
accumulate a very considerable fortune. He has an enthu-
siasm for building things, for improving bare spots of
earth. He lived for years in the neighborhood of River-
side, Connecticut, and he usually has a plan for a new
house in his pocket. Now his home is in Florida.

His books are like him poetic, gently humorous,
quaint of fancy and entirely wholesome. They are all of
the soil and people he loves so well. They have sold largely
because they are full of manly generosity and the spirit
of helpfulness, and because they contain pictures of a life
that is passing or is already gone.

HAMLIN GARLAND

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY HAMLIN GARLAND . Vll

THE MAN ON THE HILLTOP XI

PART I

RELATING TO CHARACTERS AND EVENTS
WHICH HAVE SHAPED MY MANHOOD

1. ONE OF THE LAST PURITANS WHICH IS THE STORY

OF THE BEGINNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF A GREAT
FRIENDSHIP 3

2. THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD AND ITS CHANGE OF

WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN AND WHERE I WAS BORN . 1 I

3. FINDING CHARACTER 30

4. THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER 42

5. GREAT MEN OF MY TIME: ACTOR ARTIST AUTHOR

STATESMAN 52

6. THE FICKLE GODDESS JO

7. HOT MINUTES 73

8. THE GREAT SECRET IN THE TRUE STORY OF A LONG
MARRIED LIFE 80

PART II

THINGS THAT TURNED ME TO SUCCESSFUL
AUTHORSHIP

9. NEW THINGS IN THE DRIFT 95

10. THE SOUNDING STRINGS IO2

11. GENIUS IIO

12. UNKNOWN HUMORISTS 119

ix

X CONTENTS

13. GREAT SCOTT THE STORYTELLER OF LOST LAKE . I2/

14. HOLY POKER A STORY OF A GREAT "SUCKER TRAP"

IN THE OLD NORTHWEST 134

PART III

SELECTIONS FROM MY WRITINGS

15-. "EBEN HOLDEN" JUST HOW IT WAS BEGUN AND

FINISHED AND THE PRODUCT OF THE FIRST TWO DAYS

OF WRITING 143

l6. MY NEXT NOVEL THE CONTRACT FOR WHICH

CHANGED MY PLAN OF LIFE l6z

I/. FIRST DRAFT OF "KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" . . I/I

1 8. MY LOST NOVEL 2OO

PART IV

GREAT TRUE STORIES THAT I HAVE DISCOV-
ERED IN MY JOURNEY UP THE ROAD

19. A SON OF HEAVEN 223

20. THE BOORN MYSTERY 23 1

21. FOUND TREASURE IN THE UNCOVERING OF AN OLD

AND BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE 238

22. THE BIG MYSTERY 249

23. MY FAMILY GHOST 2 54

PART V

ON THE CREST

24. THE EVE SCANDAL 263

25. ADVERTISING zj

26. THE HEART OF THE WORLD 283

27. THE SUMMING UP 287

28. LAST HORIZON 300

THE MAN ON THE HILLTOP

touring through New England. We were nearing
the top of a hill overlooking a wide valley. Far below us
we could see the smoke of villages and, nearer, spires and
high windows glowing in the sunlight. We stopped by a
small house for a look at the scene. A white-haired old
man sat on its small veranda.

"Happy New Year!" he shouted, as I got out of the
car to view the scene.

It was a June day and I was slow in answering.

"Ye know a New Year begins every morninY' he
said.

"Lived here long?" I asked.

"Couldn't V lived here any longer if I'd tried. Born
an 5 grew an* ripened right here. Now Fve come to the
time for rest but I don't rest too hard. I take it easy."

"You've seen some changes," I said.

"Changes? Say, mister, you've opened the preserve
jar an' now ye can help yerself . I recollec' when 'twas all
woods down there in the valley. See that village 'bout half
a mile below? I recollec' when it started meetin'house,
store, blacksmith shop an' so on. Them days I was about
knee-high to a johnnycake.

"Sunday we had to go down to the meetin'house an*
be yelled at for hours. It was the yellin' time in history.
We yelled at the sheep, the cows, an' the oxen. Ye know
a yell was thought to be kind o' convincin'. Often ye
could hear a man say Vhoa' a mile away.

"Things lasted so them days. Nothin' less than an

xi

Xli FROM STORES OF MEMORY

hour long an' ran from that to forever an 5 ever. The
minister give us fair warnin' an' I tell ye we hung on to
life hard as it was. No cards, no storybooks, no dancin'.
Our fun was work the huskin' bee, the apple paring the
raisin'. My mother would knit a sock leg in the course
of an evenin's frolic. The boys an' gals was a little bit
scared of each other. If a boy had been bad in school the
teacher would make him set with one o' the gals, an' after
that he was careful. We was 'fraid of our parents an' our
parents was 5 fraid o' the minister an' the minister say, he
was worse off than any of us. He had to save our souls or
settle with the Lord.

"Ye know there's more ol* maids an' ol' bachelors
here in New England than anywhere else. I'm one myself.
Live here all 'lone with my sister. A human being was said
to be a purty low down kind of a critter just naturally
sinful. We used to hear the minister read:

" *I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to
the worm, Thou art my mother. 9

"An' then we'd git slapped in the face with this text:
'The stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man,
that is a worm?'

"We had to look out for the early birds, I can tell ye.
When a feller met a gal that he liked, why, o* course he
kind o' hesitated about offerin' her a worm. Ye know I
couldn't help, f eelin' kind o' flattered one day when a boy
in the village called me a lobster.

"We had only four things to talk about: the sky, the
ground, the neighbors an' they wasn't many an* our-
selves an' we wasn't much.

"Now an' then we got a new subject the rheumatiz
or the deviltry p' some o' the young folks. By an' by a
railroad tore through the hills an' out across the valley.
Say, 'twas like a pipe from the big reservoir o* the world.

THE MAN ON THE HILLTOP Xlli

Everything begun to move faster. "We swapped the ox for
the hoss an* the scythe for the mowin* machine. Time in-
creased in value an 3 had become an important part of
eternity. Yes, sir, we begun to think less an' talk less about
eternity. More folks, more things to talk about. We
turned the woods into money. We could sell what we
raised at a good price.

"We trimmed our hair an* mowed off our whiskers.
Woods an* hair go together an' that's as sure as the fur on
a bear's back. I knew some men who moved into the vil-
lage an' cut a swath right through the middle o' their
whiskers an* left a kind of a fence o' hair on both sides
o' their faces. Some would trim 'em down to a patch on
the chin for a kind of a weather vane."

"And an aid to reflection," I suggested.

"That's it. I knew a man that always grabbed an*
twitched 'em when he was thinkin'. One man who moved
to Boston had come back with a patch on his lower lip
'bout the size of a trigger on a shotgun. He bought the
ol' farm an' a lot more land an' built a mansion. We used
to call him Bill. Always looked at yer neck when he talked
to ye. Folks used to call him the inspector of Adam's
apples. They've got two children an' a hired mother for
'em an* twenty-four dogs an' ten hosses an* six automo-
biles. Every summer day you'll see Bill whackin* a little
white ball over the hills on the ol' farm. Well, Bill got
used to hard knocks on that farm. Every fall Bill an* his
friends an' his dogs an' his hosses go tearin' an' bellerin*
over the hills an' fences in pursuit o' happiness an' I hear
that they ain't ketched her yit. Still I don't blame 'em.
What's fun for one man may look kind o' curious to
another.

" 'Course there's a lot o' foolishness. I guess we was just
as foolish when I was young but in a different way. That's

XIV FROM STORES OF MEMORY

one thing the world was made for to give a man a
chance to go in for any kind o' behavior he likes best. If
we git too foolish we have to suffer."

My notes on that talk were made forty years ago.
The World War and other great changes have come. I am
now the Man on the Hilltop myself. I shall try to be as
cheerful and illuminating as this old Yankee of long ago.
For the things I have written I claim only that no one is
the worse for having read them.

PART I

RELATING TO CHARACTERS AND EVENTS WHICH
HAVE SHAPED MY MANHOOD

1. ONE OF THE LAST PURITANS

Which is the Story of the Beginning and Development
of a Great Friendship

I was a small boy Sunday was a day of sadness.
I had to keep quiet and be good. It was a difficult under-
taking. If I failed in it I was in danger of being captured
and carried off by the Sunday Man. No child had ever
seen him, but I did some worrying about this bugaboo.

If it was summertime there would be much snoring
in the house, for it was a day of rest and I had no need
of rest. Even the chickens seemed to step softly. Only the
old cock had the courage to defy the Sunday Man. In the
afternoon the older boys would go off for cherries or ber-
ries, but they would not have me with them. I would fol-
low but they would run and hide and get away from me.

I had seen only about half an acre of the world and I
had some curiosity as to the mysteries beyond the walls
and fences. One Sunday I tried to follow them but had to
give up. Brokenhearted and weary I came back and lay
down in the tall grass near the cheese house and went to
sleep and for a time was a lost child. While my mother and
sisters and the maid were calling and searching in a panic,
I dimly remember dreaming that I was on the back of
the Sunday Man and that he was going to show me where
the Echoes lived, on the top of the wooded ledge in front
of our house. The dream would have been quite f orgottea
save for the fact that I told my mother about it. Often I
had heard the Echoes when the older children stood shout-

4 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ing at the day's end. In that singular fashion I had con-
verted the Sunday Man into a friend and was no longer
afraid of him.

I recall that my mother agreed that the Sunday Man
would never harm anyone.

As a child I liked the whistling of the winter wind
in the chimney and around the gables. I liked the hiss of
the driven snow. In the summer I even enjoyed a noisy
thunderstorm, for it afforded an exciting contrast to the
stillness of the scene. We had a merry lot of birds in the
maple trees. I loved their singing, and my mother used to
say that they sang because they loved children. It seemed
to be a compliment to me.

The birds were no happier than I. I used to sit in my
small rocking chair and sing. I knew the words of no song,
so I invented a string of rhythmic, meaningless words
which I remember to this day. They served to carry a
rapid hustle of notes which I had learned by listening to
the country fiddler who came to us for a day or two now
and then. With what a riot of merry music he filled
the house! I thought that I was some person myself, but
he humbled me. I knew that Dr. Goss, with the interest-
ing odor of drugs in his clothing, was a great man but
even he had fallen.

I amused myself by drawing cats and dogs on a slate
from models that my mother had made. I would show
them to her and she would make some remark like this:

"That cat is bobtailed and angry. She must have had
a fight with a dog and I guess he bit off her tail."

She would rub out my drawing and I would try
again.

I conceived a great love for my mother. If she was
ill, I was deeply grieved. She was mainly very gentle with
me, but I was no angel of the household and now and then

ONE OF THE LAST PURITANS 5

I felt the impact of the slipper. It always ended In a
soothing talk. I cannot remember that I ever heard a
scolding word in the house.

My father was a jolly man and quite an athlete. He
would hold a broomstick in front of him and jump over
It between his hands, backward and forward, for my
amusement. I knew then that he was the greatest of all
men. He was also gentle with me, but when it was neces-
sary he could be severe.

My father was superintendent of the poor, and in-
teresting characters began to come to our house; when I
was ten years old I wrote of the peculiarities of some of
them, to the great amusement of my father. My mother
would say with a smile that it was very good. She gently
and wisely discussed with me every misstep and problem
of my boyhood. She got books and magazines for me to
read and paid me to commit passages to memory. I began
to develop a fondness for good reading and a sense of the
power of words.

There were great men in the village of Canton those
days. Ebenezer Fisher was one of them. I went to hear his
lecture on Tyndale. The great stature, deep voice and
personality of the man thrilled me. No doubt it was the
mysterious power of his personality that sent me to his
home one day. I wanted to see him again and to feel his
hand. As an excuse for the call I had some question to
ask. I do not remember what it was. I found him just a
kindly old gentleman. I know now that such a man is a
very different human being when he is on his feet before
a crowd and the great lamp of his soul is lighted.

Our minister, Dr. Isaac M. Atwood, was a great man.
He had a powerful, well-trained voice, capable of exqui-
site notes and an imagination. His sermons were like a
noble bit of music. That kind of thing appeals to the

6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

young. I never missed a chance to hear him and even now
I rate him as one of the greatest of American pulpiteers.

There were other great men in the little town, espe-
cially A. G. Gaines, to whom its young were incalculably
indebted.

I would not give the impression that I sought only
inspiration in the days of my youth. There were bad boys
who told me of new things. I wanted to know about
them. I sowed some wild oats. But always I had to settle
with my mother. I had become a rather ingenious liar,
but my mother was an expert detective. For every lie an
hour of serious and kindly reckoning was ahead of me.
She knew that undiscovered secrets in a boy's breast are
like rats in a house. They breed. Somehow she knew all
about it and her talk would floor me. I had to keep right
with her, because well, because of my deep love for her.
A tear in her eye was worse than a lash on my back. With
me folly didn't pay. I took to another type of dissipation.

One day I heard a young man repeat the lines:

"Were I hard-favored, foul, or wrinkled-old,
Ill-nurtur'd, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,
O'erworn, despised, rheumatic and cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean and lacking juice,

Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;

But having no defects, why dost thou abhor me?"

The lines amused me and I asked who wrote them.

''Shakespeare," he answered.

The next day I went to Jewett's bookstore and bought
for seventy-five cents The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare in one volume of execrably fine print. In the
next year I read nearly all the plays and committed many
of the great passages. Here were adventures more thrilling
than any I had known. My mother shared them with me.

ONE OF THE LAST PURITANS J

Shakespeare's arrival in my poor intellect was, for
me, an important event. About that time a wonderful
friendship began between me and my mother. Friendship
is perhaps a curious relation to exist between mother and
son, but that is the fitting word.

When I was in my third year in college our little
flock had scattered. Some had gone to the long home. My
oldest sister was teaching in Minnesota. My father had
met with reverses and was rarely with us. My mother and
I lived alone together in the house in town. We were poor.
We had enough to eat and decent clothing, but I rarely
had even a quarter of a dollar in my pocket. On Satur-
days I could earn a dollar posting the books of some busi-
nessman. In summer I hoed the garden.

I had become a recognized force in college. There
were things that I could do certainly as well as any other
student, but it was a small college and so the credit I claim
is not large. Still I had the respect of the faculty and of
an able lot of boys and girls. This was accomplished by
hard work.

My mother knew all about my successes but said
nothing. She never praised me but she had a way of touch-
ing my face with her hand, now and then, that told me
of her satisfaction and her fondness.

It was a noble friendship that I enjoyed with this wise
and gentle woman, who was my mother a descendant
of John Alden and his wife Priscilla. That fact helps to
explain the word "friendship/* She had the restrained
spirit of the elder race. Gushing emotionalism was not for
them. Yet they had a depth of feeling proved by the
sternest acts of sacrifice. This is also true: they were quite
as reserved in expressing aversion or contempt. It was
likely to be veiled. Their talent for understatement has
created a school of humor.

8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I remember she once said of a foolish neighbor:

"He has wandered from wisdom about as far as he
can go. He's near the end of the road. 3 *

That for her was a severe verdict.

I love to think of those days when she and I were
alone together. What hours of deep emotion and inspira-
tion passed as we read aloud to each other the magic words
of some great master! In the morning I was awakened by
her singing as she began the work of the day. Generally
it was the hymn "Tell me the old, old story." The sound
of her voice gladdened me. I would arise and take a
sponge bath at the basin. Before I was quite dressed she
would come in with a cheery greeting and say that break-
fast was ready.

The memory of that time is so dear to me that I have
no words fit to tell of it. The deep, still water of our life
had a smooth surface. Our affection was a subtle, covered
thing. We did not try to put it into words and kissing
was a gesture quite unnecessary. I do not remember that
she ever kissed me. Trollope would have asked that mat-
ter so intimate be published after his death, but such
affectation is to me more offensive than the truth.

My senior year came along. Months in advance I
began to prepare for my oration. My theme was to be
"The Attic Drama," of which I had gained some knowl-
edge from Bohn's Classical Library. I read thoughtfully
the vivid translations of some of the tragedies of Euripi-
des, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. I studied the lectures of
Von Schlegel and other distinguished authorities. In three
months I knew my theme and its relations well enough to
begin writing.

The day of my final test had come. It was a lovely
June day. The big hall was crowded. When I came to the
platform, I saw my mother and father sitting about half-

ONE OF THE LAST PURITANS 9

way up the slant. For their sake I must do my best, and
I did. When I left the stage I knew that I had made my
point.

As I was going out many people shook my hand.
Among them were my mother and father. They said little,
but I could feel the thing beyond their words.

On the street I met one of our old hired men. "Ye
done grand/ 5 he said. "There wasn't no darn fool like me
could tell what ye was talkin' about."

Extravagant things were said and written of that
humble effort of mine, which was nothing more or less
than the work of a boy who had the sense and energy to
be prepared for his task. I had to do that with my mother
and father looking on. I had a big debt to pay to them.
In spite of all the ill luck, after that day they were happy
people.

Within a year my father was gone. My mother lived
with my married sister in Canton. Often I went back to
her. The editor of the Lothrop Publishing Company of
Boston has written:

In July 1900 Eben Holden came out and the sales were soon
very large. One hundred and five thousand were shipped to the
trade in a week. By Christinas time the sales had reached three
hundred thousand and the book has been selling ever since.
Even now, thirty-eight years after publication, about one thou-
sand a year are sold. What the sales have been no one can tell.
The book was not copyrighted in Europe and there and in the
colonies it had a large sale. In a sixpenny edition it went to
many printings. Here is one of the few books that is in the
million list.

This seems to indicate that at last I had pleased a
larger audience than had ever assembled in the old Town
Hall. Proudly I took the book to my mother. For two
days she sat reading it. Often I saw her laughing quietly.

10 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Then she put her hand gently on my brow and said it was
very good. She was still afraid of spoiling me.
One of the last puritans was she.

Now a word as to the lesson of all this.

I was prepared to believe Bishop Anderson who once
said to me: "'I came into boyhood with the ineffable child
love for my mother and father. It came no doubt from
their patience, their gentle hands and voices. It is one of
the biggest things in human life. It comes, if it comes at
all, before one is six years of age. It's bigness lies in the
fact that it helps to fashion one's love for his wife and his
regard for all men. I pity the child who never gets it and
I wonder how one can get it with a hired mother."

In America the home has suffered many changes.
When I was a boy its main object was the making of men
and women. I regret that I am not a better example. A
considerable part of our population inhabits flats and
apartments, while men and women give their time largely
to the imperative demands of business and social dissipa-
tion.

I sometimes fear that the result of this will be the
hard-boiled type of boy and girl to whom divorce will not
be a serious matter. I suppose that there is much to be said
for the hard-boiled attitude. It is doubtless a help to one
in the acquisition of wealth. It is somewhat in line with
the English method of rearing children. It should be said,
however, that their nurses are people of character and let
us not forget that the home of our old democracy fur-
nished an inspiration to the mind of childhood that gave
us many of our best men, while in Europe we learn rarely
of a great man who has risen from the ranks.

2. THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD AND

ITS CHANGE

Of Which I Have Written and Where I Was Born

I AM often surprised by the increasing number of things
that I don't know, but northern New York is not one of
them. From hoeing I got a considerable depth of knowl-
edge while young. In time I began to suspect that the pen
was mightier than the hoe. Then some people began to
think that I was "a good feller but that I wasn't good for
anything else."

They were sometimes wrong I discovered when I
began another kind of digging. I got a bigger yield to the
acre out of its moral and intellectual soil than ever from
its ground.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century northern
New York was a remote frontier. It had many features
of unusual interest. There were the old manor houses of
the Van Rensselaers and the Ogdens and that of George
Parish the Baron von Sef tonburg the most dashing and
romantic figure in the land; there were the abandoned
estates of the Count de Chaumont and the Baroness de
Ferriet and of Joseph Bonaparte that brother of Napo-
leon who had been King of Spain; there was the most
beautiful and tremendous water highway on the conti-
nent, down which came the forests of the farther west in
great rafts on their way to the mills; there, too, was a
howling wilderness. Many a time in my boyhood I have
heard it howl in the voices of wolf and panther. A won-

12 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

derful place it was, with its many lakes and ponds; with
its ancient green trails, its wild life, its mighty hunters.
Going down the Raquette or the Oswegatchie or the St.
Regis forty years ago, one had to take off his hat to the
beauty of the world, although he may never have done
the like, for here were rivers walled and often roofed with
pine and birch and tamarack, and bordered with lilies; and
there were torches of blue iris flaming above the reeds,
and wild roses crowding to the water's edge.

Most of the inhabitants of this part of the valley of
the St. Lawrence got there in the westward movement
from northern Vermont. They were a hardy race of men.
Their fathers had been the Green Mountain Boys a dar-
ing lot of raiders, woodchoppers, and fighting men. They
had had many enemies, the greatest of whom was the
Devil, but these were worn out rapidly. They were almost
wasteful in their use of enemies, but, of course, they knew
where they could get others and felt that they could
afford this one extravagance. They came over the moun-
tains and through the woods with their families in oxcarts
and wagons. The old feather beds and some few sacred
articles of furniture were in the carts and wagons with a
kettle and a frying pan, and some corn meal. The old
family musket, with a barrel so long that one had to back
up for a shot if the game was near him, furnished meat
for the journey. Often they drove a cow along so that
they might have her milk with the pudding. It was a hard
trip, with much breaking down by the way.

Early in the last century a traveler on the old Cha-
teaugay trail met a man going west with his oxcart. One
of the wheels had been broken, and the mover was mend-
ing it. His wife lay sick on a feather bed, under a bark
lean-to. His children were shivering in the cold rain. In
spite of all this the man was singing as he worked. He

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 13

greeted the newcomer with a merry jest, and the latter
said to him:

"My friend, how in God's name do you manage to
keep so cheerful?"

"I've got to/' said the mover in a low tone as he
paused in his task. "Ye see, I've got to make them believe
we're havin' a good time, an' it keeps me awful busy.
Today I can hardly believe it myself."

That was an example of the man who settled the St.
Lawrence Valley in northern New York. They were
mostly a cheerful lot, simply because they had to be. The
man was usually responsible for the moving. The wife was
the conservative member of the family who had dreaded
to leave the old neighborhood for the life of a pioneer,
and had tried to hold him back. So, it had been up to him
to make her believe, if possible, that pioneering was fun.
He sang, he told stories, he invented jokes, he laughed
even when his courage was broken. He built his cabin of
logs and battened it with moss and roofed it with rough-
hewn troughs, and windowed it with greased paper, and
began to clear away the woods, burning the trees as they
fell. The ashes were his only source of income, for he could
leach water through them and boil down the lye into
black salts which were much in demand.

Shut in by the mountains and the forest on the south
and east, and the water boundary of an alien land on the
north and west, he kept the dialect and customs of his
fathers. I remember well the mental boundaries of these
people in my youth. In the east was history, in the west
mystery, in the north the British, in the south the Demo-
cratic party, while above them was a difficult heaven, and
beneath them a wide-open and capacious hell. It was
natural, I suppose, that they should indulge in profanity
as well as in prayer, and I knew good men who were pro-

14 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ficient in both directions. There were miles of whiskers in
the valley those days, and nowhere was the head of the
Yankee more fertile inside or outside. The men rested now
and then to swap horses and stories and political opin-
ions, but the women were always busy, it seemed to me.
They were a wonderful race of women each a spinner,
a weaver, a knitter, a sewer, a tailor, a cook, a washer-
woman, a nurse, a doctor, a wise and tender mother. They
went to the neighbors for a visit or an evening of frolic,
now and then, but their hands were busy even while they
played, and they would knit half a stocking in the course
of their fun.

Their lives were lonely. They were often thinking of
the old friends and beloved scenes they had left forever,
and yet they were not more than a hundred miles from
them a journey so long and difficult that they dared to
think of it only in dreams. They found diversion in work.
They worked and saved and sang of rest, but never
seemed to be taking it. Their songs were streaked with the
note of melancholy. It was like the sound of the wind in
the chimney on a cold day. I used to hear them singing,
in my youth, that old lyric which Robinson Crusoe was
said to have sung in his loneliness:

Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestowed upon man,
Oh, had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again!

A few books, the Weekly Tribune, Ballon's Maga-
zine, Our Boys and Girls, edited by Oliver Optic, afforded
most of their amusement and consolation. The characters
of Dickens and Ann Stephens, the adventures of Daniel
Boone and David Livingstone, the sermons of Bushnell
and Beecher, the wisdom of Horace Greeley came into the

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD If

glow of the evening lamp and entered their thoughts and
dreams.

These people had to do their own sowing and reaping
and threshing and milling (largely with tools of their
own manufacture) , their own building and mending, and
with it all they had learned to do their own thinking a
highly important accomplishment. Taking thought for
the morrow was the price of life. The self-made thinkers
were on every frontier. The best came to be fairly well
known: Wright, Webster, Lincoln, Grant, Greeley, Mark
Twain.

So the people of our "north country" lived and
fought the good fight. The railroad came in the middle
fifties, and the young people began to break away from
the farms. Some of the young men went west or down to
the oil fields in Pennsylvania. Some went away to school,
living in a small room and boarding themselves. Some re-
turned in fine boots and store clothing, with cigars in
their mouths and silver in their pockets, and in their
satchels a new kind of fruit called "bananas." They told
of wonderful adventures and narrow escapes; of a hun-
dred dollars a month and such fabulous earnings. There
was no holding the young men after that. Sundry big
schools had been established in near-by villages. A college
had opened north of the woods. Ministers and professors
began to tell of the power of learning in the district
schoolhouses. Everybody wanted to sell out and go west,
but in those days one might as well try to sell a corner
lot on Mars as a farm seven miles from the railroad. Many
rented and moved to the towns to educate their children.
Naturally, the farms began to run down.

I remember returning to the scenes of my youth some
thirty years ago. The old farm had been sold and resold
and mortgaged and remortgaged. It was in the hands of

l6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

a new American, who was willing to live on what he
could not sell. He stood on the half -ruined porch looking
at me as I drove in.

"Hello," said I.

"Hello," said he. "Who be you?"

I told him.

"They tell me you've done noble down there," said he.

"How've you done?" I asked.

"Jest livin' farmin' is played out," he answered.

"Quit it," said I.

"Can't," said he.

"Why not?" said I.

"Mortgaged," said he. "What'll I do?"

"You look as if you might die without trying very
hard," I suggested.

"Can't," said he.

"Why not?" said I.

"Mortgaged," said he. "With my wife and children
I ain't no right to die."

At that moment there drove in a man who for many
years had held mortgages on every acre of the countryside.
The tenant introduced me.

"If your father had kept you here, this farm wouldn't
look as it does now," the newcomer said to me.

"No," said the tenant. "If he'd stayed here the farm
would have looked better, but he'd have looked a damn
sight worse."

A good bit of the physical and psychological situa-
tion of that time and country is in this anecdote, and a
thing to be remembered is this: the people had a sense of
humor which misfortune could not destroy.

It has been fifty-seven years since I left the land of
Ebeh Holden. It is the chief milkshed of the continent*
Every morning in early summer a million quarts of milk

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 17

go speeding down to the metropolis a great life-giving
river. Without this daily flood New York would be in a
panic.

The cow is the backbone of the north country, as this
region has been called since my story of its life was pub-
lished. The sleek, handsome herds scattered over its vivid
green flats and hillsides, the peace and color of its land-
scapes have delighted me. My trained eyes have now, per-
haps, a keener appreciation of its sunny, well-grassed
slopes, of its shapely hawthorns, of its gray rock ledges,
of its fifty-mile vistas, cut with shining ribbons of blue
water.

But the changes fill me with amazement. Every
township is crossed by concrete highways. In two direc-
tions they enter the deep wilderness and break through to
the clearings beyond. There are those who in toiling over
its trails have envied the speed and clear pathway of the
eagle. Now they have and use them. Only the initiated
know of the riches we have almost abandoned in that
great treasure house the voices, the silences, the shapes,
the colors, the odors, the innumerable, ever-changing
types of beauty, the songs that seemed, somehow, to give
wings to the imagination of the traveler and to lift him
out of the sordid world he knew. "What a lesson in seeing
and listening was in that vast, lonely, shadowed theater!
What healing in the toil of lungs and feet! How sweet the
taste of the mountain brook as we rested by its singing
waters! Now we roar along the concrete highways and
think we are seeing the forest.

The new roads and the motorcars that rush over them
have had a singular effect on the small villages which were
prosperous in my boyhood, each with stores, a population
of several hundred persons, and a thriving hotel. One
summer my wife and I began to think of the old coun-

l8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

tryside and village I had known in my youth; of its Main
Street where traffic halted soon after the sun went down,
and the voices of the night were those of crickets and
katydids. The call was insistent and we answered it. Our
rooms and bath in this country town were inviting with
nearly every accessory to which we had been accustomed.
Here, too, were willing hands and friendly faces.

My wife's room had two large windows overlooking
Main Street and another that commanded the river view.
Night came on. Along the street below was a solid line
of parked cars. The weather was warm. We put out the
lights, opened the windows and went to bed with a grate-
ful sense of comfort. We were weary and soon asleep.

I was awakened about half past eleven by a persistent
grinding in the street below. It was the nagging sound of
three or four aged and infirm self-starters. Soon one of
them set the engine in a roar broken by terrific bursting
snorts. Being a horseman, I have heard some snorts in my
time, but these had the combined abdominal power of
forty horses behind them. Then the acceleration lasted for
minutes during which the tortured engine was like a lion
at bay. Each cylinder and spark plug complained as it
went off with an uproar that would have put a locomo-
tive to shame. One starter, coaxed for half an hour, failed
to connect and half a dozen laughing boys and girls
pushed the disabled car to an all-night garage for expert
attention. The reluctant starters continued their grinding
and the snort and roar of carbonized engines kept us
awake until after two o'clock. All this was a curious echo
of new customs. We might as well have been trying to
sleep on the sidewalk. It was as if the lounge, the bureau
and the chiffonier had gone tumbling about the room on
a spree.

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 19

"Crickets and katydids!" my wife exclaimed in a
hysterical tone. "Lord! What a place!"

"The farmer boys have all gone home," I said. "We
can sleep now."

Indeed, the town was quiet at last. We did sleep. We
slept nearly half an hour, when two cars came racing
down the street with defiant yells from the drivers. The
engines were not less excited than the men. They made a
mile-wide streak of terrifying sound in the night. My wife
began to express herself in language more or less emo-
tional.

"Fm sorry," I answered. "Main Street has got some
new habits since I was a boy."

Again we sailed off in quiet water on the slumber
sea. It was a short trip. Soon after six o'clock a big motor
truck, loaded with live veal, parked under our windows.
The veal began to advertise its hunger and discomfort
with a chorus of loud protesting blats. Is there any sound
so penetrating as the voice of youthful and distressed
bovinity? No doubt the driver had halted for breakfast.
In half an hour we were off this shoal of misery and on
our way again.

Now, the very modern children of the proprietor,
whom we regarded with a degree of affection and admi-
ration, were a lively lot. How often I have observed that
in a country town rumination is apt to have a whistling
accompaniment. The bright boy of twelve came up the
stairs whistling a lively tune with upper notes of singular
penetration. I think that people who have spent the
greater part of fifty years in New York would regard
whistling indoors as a pernicious and disturbing type of
activity. The siren voice of the fire engine at midnight is
no worse. It woke me and in a moment four children were
noisily chasing each other in the big hall beyond our doors.

20 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

The day had come and they were innocently trying to
amuse themselves. So we decided to call it a night. It was
no easy matter to decide to pack our trunks and move.
We were riot disposed to give up.

The Main Street hotel proprietor has improved in taste
and cultivation since I was a boy. But he is a little like
the motorcars we had heard. His engine is tired and in
need of attention.

I began my literary career as the editor of a hotel
newspaper. It became necessary for me to study the art
followed by certain successful men in the management of
crowded caravansaries. Every week I was in touch with
Uriah "Welch of the St. Nicholas, Charles Koerner of the
Everett, Horace Brockway of the Ashland, Samuel Kiefer
of the Grand Central, Mr. Leland of the Sturtevant, Mr.
Witherbee of the Windsor and other bonif aces who had
carried the art to a high degree of perfection.

To my astonishment I learned that most of these men
went to market every morning at an early hour to pass
personally on every important item in the day's supplies.
I learned further that they were often in the kitchen and
pantries looking after the preparation of the food and its
service, the condition of floors, refrigerators, stoves and
dishes, the dress and appearance of the force. The kitchen
was the keystone of the structure. Guests were invited to
go there. The comfort and contentment of the guest was
an object of ceaseless study.

Most country hotel men still go on in the century-
old rut. They dress well. They make genial observations
about the weather and do nothing but smile and receive
the cash. Their marketing is done by the chore boy. Their
kitchens are sloppy and unclean. The "fresh" vegetables
have been loafing in the refrigerator for days. They have
swapped flavors. The onions and the cucumbers taste alike.

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 21

These men forget that the world is constantly passing
their doors and longing for comfort and good food. Often
I have had to wonder why in summer, surrounded by
thousands of acres of productive land, fresh vegetables
rarely get to their tables. Still, our host was in many re-
spects an exceptional country innkeeper.

That day we had a restful and pleasant ride in the
sunlit hills and valleys. We came back in a better mood.
We ate our supper and sat smoking and watching the
fading colors of the western sky reflected on the quiet
river surface. Suddenly, as night fell, we heard wild
whoops and yells of triumph and shrieks of fright and
despair. The children of the neighborhood had stealthily
gathered on the darkened lawn and were now engaged in
an Indian raid. It was like the descent of the Mohawks
on Cherry Valley. We fled to our rooms. We closed the
windows and amused ourselves awhile with backgammon.
Nine o'clock came. The raid was over. We got ready for
bed.

"Let's close the windows and keep out the giddy
whirl of Main Street/' I proposed. "We'll get air enough
under these high ceilings."

My wife wouldn't stand for it. Two windows had to
be open. We fell asleep and in about half an hour were
awakened by the murmuring and yelping of saxophones
on the veranda just below one of our open windows. Soon
they were in full cry. A dance had begun there and we
could hear many voices of happy, carefree youth. I turned
on a light and came out of my room laughing.

"You may think it's funny, but I don't," my wife
complained. "This is what you call the sweet, quiet, rest-
ful, delightful country. Gosh! Take me back to Park or
Lexington Avenue. Tresh fruits and vegetables!* And

22 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

men coming into the dining room in their shirt sleeves!
Lord! Take me back/*

She was a born New Yorker. She had no toleration
for shirt sleeves. She didn't understand them. What could
I say? I had coaxed her into this trouble.

"Well," I said, "the old place ain't what it used to
be. Cheer up. Well start for Maine tomorrow."

The dance continued until one o'clock. The young
of the country are as eagerly in pursuit of pleasure as
those of the great towns. The big towns set the fashion
in living and the country-bred youngsters are keeping
up with the procession. As to the cost of it, well, worry
has become a habit in every countryside and "for one
night more let's forget it; we've not long to be young
anyhow." They do not stay at home as they used to. Why?
Motorcars. They can easily go many miles after supper to
a dance.

Tomorrow arrived but we did not move. My wife
was ill and I in disgrace. The doctor said he would come
right away. He did not come for hours. Is it because a good
country doctor is now so much in demand that he finds
it difficult to keep his appointments? I know that I, hav-
ing a sense of responsibility for everything that happened
in the place, suffered with a feeling of guilt for his de-
linquency.

Every day at a certain hour the great transconti-
nental busses met under our windows going east and west.
They had some grade to make going either way from the
foot of Main Street. They were long and ponderous. They
started with bursting roars that continued for half a
minute. It was like artillery practice.

"Crickets and katydids!" my wife would exclaim as
they went away.

The telephone was often ringing. Readers of mine

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 23

wished to see and greet me. Anyone who has the courage
to read my books excites my sympathy. Always I went
down to see them. Often they had literary ambition and
had written stories which they wished me to read.

One day the clerk announced that a cousin of mine
wanted to see me. I went down. A man who looked like
a tramp sat In a remote corner of the office. He was the
seedy remnant of a noble race the son of one of my
many cousins. His father was a distinguished citizen of
the old time, his great-uncle had been an honored gen-
eral in the Civil War. He asked me if I would kindly lend
him a dollar.

"No/ 3 I said. "But I will gladly give you a dollar."

He took it and went away. Poor man! It certainly
was a country that differed much from the land I had
known. Here was an extremist of the don't- worry party.
Are they all headed his way?

The merchants and bankers in the old towns of from
three to five thousand people are now immensely wor-
ried. The leading banker in the village said to me:

"We have got to pay a good part of the cost of these
long concrete highways. It will take many years to do it.
Our people are overburdened with taxes. Every day I
listen to pathetic appeals for cash. What is the effect of
these highways? Our people do less and less of their trad-
ing at home. They can go away to the big cities and see
life and buy their goods cheaper. Many of our shops are
going into the hands of foreigners who can dine on an
onion and a hunk of bread. Have we bought at an ex-
travagant figure the thing that is going to destroy us? The
small villages are already dead. One could not borrow fifty
dollars on a house that may have cost ten thousand. Is
that a portent of what is going to happen even in these
larger towns? We are all worried/'

24 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

These villages are dying. Mr. A. Barton Hepburn,
who for many years had an influence in the banking
world next to that of the elder Morgan, came from one
of these little villages. It is up the Raquette near the edge
of the big woods, and is called Colton. His brother, a man
over eighty years of age, still lives there. I found him in
his little shop behind the house. It was a silent house. The
wife had moved to the cemetery, the daughter lived in
Potsdam. It was one of a string of perhaps forty neat,
small houses, all occupied. The hotel, the mills, the stores
all save one were gone. The head of "Teak" Hepburn, as
he is called in the north country his voice, his smile, his
humor reminded me of his distinguished brother.

"Colton is not the village it was in the old time," I
said.

He rose from his chair and brought to me a small
section of a beaver log gnawed to a point. "That was done
right here in the village/* he said. "The beavers have
moved in. They are now our neighbors/*

The town story is like those of many other places. The
clinking anvil and the brawny leather-aproned men are
gone. The big mill fed on the timber of the forest. Its
food gave out and it died. The grist mill couldn't stand
the competition of the steel rollers in Minneapolis. "With
broad, smooth roads leading to large towns and motor-
cars available on installments, the people could do their
buying in the larger towns with a greater variety of goods
to choose from. There they found many stores. Women
could enjoy shopping that beloved dissipation which is
one of the mysteries to the masculine mind. They could
see life and get material for conversation. There were
temptations, and temptations are dear to most people.
They could slip into the "movie" show with the children
for thirty cents each. "Fair time" comes every week these

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 25

days. The Colton folk can now get to Potsdam, ten miles
away, in about fifteen minutes. What could the local
shops do but close their doors? So Colton has become a
place where a few people lodge in the homes they inher-
ited. It is a remote suburb of the large towns.

There is no demand for its land and houses. It has its
Hepburn library and its church where a missionary comes
to preach. It has its full-flowing, picturesque Raquette
River, but unless some miracle should happen it is a
doomed village. I could name many villages that are in a
like situation.

The old spirit, now not quite at home, is in these
words of Teak Hepburn:

"My wife and I had no plan for reforming the
world. We lived here quietly for more than half a cen-
tury. We kept our hands busy. In the evening we read
books and newspapers or visited with the neighbors. We
were happy and contented. When she got sick and I knew
she was going to leave me I said to her:

** 'Well, mother, you and I have jogged up the road
together a good many years. If you're going away I wish
you'd take me along.'

"It was like the family going off with no room for
the small boy in the wagon.

"I live here all alone now. Sometimes I go away to
visit my daughter. Stay a week or two and get homesick.
Come back and fuss around here awhile and get lonesome.
Then I go back to see her. So my life swings between
loneliness and homesickness."

All this he said with the cheerful face of a good
sport. He is one of the great characters of the north
country a philosopher, an artist who can mount a buck's
head with a startling fidelity to nature. He is a man sound
to the core. Yet he belongs to another time. He is the last

2^ FROM STORES OF MEMORY

of his kind. For weeks I have been searching for men of
the old type. They are nearly all gone. The shrewd,
quaintly humorous philosopher, to whom the life of the
far world was a mystery that stirred his imagination and
was a source of amusement to him, is passing out. There
are characters, but they are tarred with conventional
manners and ambitions. They lack the great and noble
gifts of imagination that gave to the old-timers humor
and originality.

I have set down a part of the price that my native
land has paid for the roads and the motorcars. They have
killed the small villages and made one man like another.
The needed costs of building and repairing have doubled
taxes, and this burden will be on the necks of the genera-
tions to come.

Thirty-eight years ago I asked Andrew Carnegie to
give a library to the town where I went to school as a boy.

'Til give as large a library as the town needs if it will
vote ten per cent of the cost as its annual fund for main-
tenance," he answered.

I was able to offer the town a $30,000 building. This
was refused on the ground that it would be unjust to
burden posterity with an annual tax of $3,000.

Such was the sensitive conscience and the conserva-
tive spirit of that time. The conscience of today would
seem to have no such tender regard for future generations.

The automobile came along. The horses seemed to
recognize it as a natural enemy. They began to rear and
plunge into the ditches. A man who set out on the road
with a team took his life in his hands. A war began be-
tween gas and horse power. Gas won. Then an able and
organized movement against the old, conservative spirit
of America set in. It employed the most skillful salesmen.
The horse was doomed. Therefore every householder must

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 27

have a motorcar. It would cost more than all the horses
he owned. How could he pay for it?

"Easily," the salesman answered. "We'll sell you a
good car on the installment plan. It will quicken the pace
of your life and increase your earning power. In a year
it will save time enough to pay for it."

It was a good argument. The farmer might hesitate,
but soon or late he must fall in line or stay at home. Then
naturally he was in favor of improved highways. They
saved gas and upkeep. They increased the speed, safety
and comfort of travel.

He had bought his car, and he now bought his roads,
on the installment plan. The towns issued bonds o ma-
ture at varying periods. The taxes are now a heavy bur-
den, and of every dollar of tax about 50% cents are for
roads and repairs.

Many of the farmers are in distress. In a certain
family of seven the children take turns in fasting one day
a week. The reason is that for many years they have been
getting a low price for their milk.

On one of the hills I met a merryhearted old-time
schoolmaster who really said things. "You know," he
began, "this was never a place to make money, but it was
always a good place to make men. Some of the men we've
turned out have put the world in our debt. In the old
time boys and girls were actually acquainted with their
parents and the parents were worth knowing. A sublime
devotion grew up between them. In our homes there was
time to read and think.

"Now, I have had charge of a number of man fac-
tories up here high schools and academies. You know,
there's a time when every boy and girl is a fool. They've
got to be watched and convinced of the fact. As a rule
they had begun to suspect the truth before they got to

28 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

me. Here's the fundamental thing to remember in man
making: At one time or another the Mind and the Body
of boy and girl get into a row and one or the other is
licked. It's at that point in the road where you meet Sex
and its allied deviltries.

"The Mind may win all its battles. There's danger
even in that, for the children may easily begin to think
that they know more than God. You must turn them
right while they're in the gristle. Only a miracle can make
one change his mental direction after his bones and mus-
cles have begun to set. I remember the time when I was
a damn fool and didn't know it until my father told me.
It took a number of private interviews to convince me.

"When a fellow gets the penetration to discover that
alarming fact about himself he's on the road to better
things. So many spend their lives feeding and building up
and rubbing the spavins of a jackass whose ears can be
seen a mile away. Oh, it's a dangerous strip of road ahead
after one gets into his teens!

"Now, when the fight between mind and body is on
in our children, the body gets an undue amount of help.
Every week they go to the theater where they have a
chance to see and study the life of the world of which
they know nothing the motives that keep the wheels
going. What do they see? Well, it's largely revolting sex
stuff, seduction, murder, robbery, strutting bullies, gun-
play, biffs on the chin, wild, impossible adventures in which
the hero performs a miracle by leaping over some kind
of precipice. Is this life? Well, if so, it's unbelievable. A
wise man must conclude that if our life has come to that,
America is an amusing country. Of course, it isn't true.
"It is the duty of every town and city to see that the
young are correctly and well educated. This means that it
is as much their duty to superintend the theaters as the

THE COUNTRY OF MY BOYHOOD 29

schools. It wouldn't tolerate a school whose purpose was
simply to amuse and mislead the young. Yet no school has
one-fiftieth part of the influence of the new theater which
has pushed its way into every countryside of America."

We drove one day to the edge of the wilderness to
see an old and exemplary citizen, who lived with his
daughter and son-in-law. He had been a churchman and
a Bible student. I was looking for a sacred atmosphere.
While the deaf old gentleman was telling me of the best
sermon that he had ever heard, a number of young chil-
dren played in the dooryard. Among them was an attrac-
tive little girl of six, eating bread and butter. A chicken
came near her bare feet for the crumbs.

"Get away!" she said with some indignation. "If you
peck my feet I'll kick your g-^ d head off."

"It's fortunate for a grandfather to be deaf these
days," I said to my wife.

Such are the new problems of my own land and of
all sections like it, I assume.

Its women no longer bake bread. Their motorcar
enables them to patronize the bakeries and even the laun-
dries. They have more leisure, and no one will regret it
who knows of the hard life they had in the old time.

There are few distinguished men in the towns,
whereas in the old time there were many. But there are
still thrifty folk in town and countryside. It is worthy of
note that Canton, a village of 3,000 persons, has bank
deposits of $5,000,000. This in spite of the hard times.
While the farmer may be sorely pressed, he has milk,
grain, vegetables, meat on the hoof, and comfortable
shelter. He doesn't have to go begging. There is no bluff,
no "keeping up with Lizzie" in his life. While his person,
his family, and his farm may look shabby, often he will
have a little money drawing interest.

3. FINDING CHARACTER

As a small boy my curiosity about the world I lived in
made me a nuisance. The vote was almost unanimous in
the family. This curiosity continued through my youth.
My legs became Its servants and I fear that there were
days when my father and mother regretted that I ever
was born. This must be said for my restless passion to get
acquainted with the world: It put me In touch with two
remarkable characters, the memory of whom has helped
me to weave this web of life behind me. I had gone to
Vermont on an errand. Tempted by beautiful things, I
spent so much that I had not money enough to buy my
ticket to take me home on the railroad. That did not
worry me. I was sixteen years of age. Those were the
sunny, songful days of midsummer and there were
pleasant roads ahead.

On one of them I overtook a boy some two or three
years older than myself. He had a wooden leg a rude
stump on which his knee rested and walked with a grip
In his hand. He was a rugged, serious-looking boy, with
a face browned by the sunlight. He asked for my name
and "place of residence."

"I'm a commercial traveler/ 3 he informed me pres-
ently.

"What do you sell?"

"Sit down an' I'll show ye."

We sat on the grass together, and he opened his grip.
It was full of round white balls, differing in size and
neatly wrapped in tinted tissue paper.

30

FINDING CHARACTER 31

"What Is It?" I asked.

"What is it?" he answered, with dignity. "That, sir,
is Sal."

"Sal?" said I

"Sal," said he, with a fond look at one of the white
balls which now lay in his hand. "Sal cleans and polishes
silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes
dirt from woodwork, and makes the home bright and
beautiful."

How glibly the words flowed from his tongue!

"What is your line?" he asked.

"Fm on my way home," said I.

"How would you like to take Sal with you?" he
asked.

"I don't know," was my answer.

"I'll sell you the receipt for a dollar," said the boy
with a wooden leg. "Fifty cents' worth of material will
make a hundred balls. They sell like hot cakes ten cents
for the small sizes, twenty-five for the large."

"I haven't much money only sixteen cents," I an-
swered, embarrassed.

He looked me over from head to foot, and said, "I'll
trust ye, if ye'd like to try it."

"All right," I said.

He opened his little grip and counted out ten of the
small balls and as many large ones.

"There," said he, "ye ought to be able to sell 'em all
in a day. Then you can send me a dollar for the receipt."

"How do you go to work to sell it?" I asked.

"The towns are best," said he. "When I get to a town
I make a little map of the main streets and put down the
names the hotel man is always glad to help you. By an'
by I begin to ring the doorbells. I don't ask for the lady
of the house no, sir; I say, *Is Mrs. Smith at home?' It

32 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

works grand there she is. 'Kind lady/ says I, Tm intro-
ducin' Sal, who cleans silverware, glassware, etc. Sal is
better than a hired girl/

"Don't forget to say that it makes the home bright
and beautiful It's a nice chunk o* language an' tells just
what the women are trying to do. 'Course she says, 'No,
thanks.' Then says I, If you've any old piece o' tarnished
silver, I'd like to make a little exhibition. As the poet says:

Til make it shine
As brightly as those eyes of thine/

Throw in a little portry once in a while. It sounds good
an' is easy to remember. But ye got to be careful. Some
don't like it. Women that wear aprons an* have their
sleeves rolled up'll generally stand portry, specially if
they've got curly hair. Look out for handsome women
that wear diamonds an' set around with their feet up
readin* portry. Seems so them that read portry get enough
of it. Don't ever give 'em any of yours.

"Women are funny. Around here there's two kinds
of 'em insiders an' outsiders. The outsiders talk about
their neighbors; the insiders talk about their livers an*
lungs, an' so on. I know one that talks about her liver
shameful. You'd think it was the meanest thing in the
world.

"They ain't all alike. In some places you'll find 'em
perched in their fam'ly trees. Lord! I know one that sets
an' chirps by the hour in her fam'ly tree. You've got to
let her go it, an* bypi-by, maybe, you can bring her down
to the fam'ly teapot. If so, you're all right. It's wonderful
how they go on. You'll enjoy it, an* that's half the bat-
tle.

"Be sure to notice the children. I always let *em
fool with my wooden leg. Sometimes I put one end on

FINDING CHARACTER 33

a chair an 5 let 'em set on it. I suppose this old leg has
been set on an 5 abused more than any leg in the world.

"You ain't got a wooden leg, an' it's kind of a pity,
as ye might say, for it's wonderful how this thing helps
in business. Lots o' times it helps ye git acquainted, an'
that gives ye a chance. Then say, look a-there." He flung
his wooden stump over his knee and felt the surface of
it, and explained: "That's where one kid drove a nail
in it, an* that's where one fetched a whack with a stove
iron, an' there a little redheaded boy bored a hole with
his gimlet. Curious how they take to it; an' I don't mind
much. Helps business an' makes 'em happy."

He called my attention to many small dents in the
wood.

"That's where the dogs has bit it," he went on.
"If a dog comes at me, I always put it out to him. It keeps
'em busy."

He showed me a small atomizer, adding, "A little
ammonia'll shift the trouble onto them."

"We rose and resumed our journey. I had stored my
small stock of Sal in my coat pockets.

"There's the receipt," he said gravely as he handed
me a piece of paper.

It revealed the fact that Sal was composed chiefly
of whiting and ammonia.

"All ye need now is a small sponge an' some tissue
paper, an' here's a piece o' chamois that ye can have an'
welcome."

He explained his method of applying Sal, and pres-
ently handed me his card, on which was this legend:

JAMES HENRY McCARTHY

COMMERCIAL TRAVELER

HERMON CENTRE, N. Y.

34 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"I ain't much there/* he went on. "The boys call
me Pegleg at home, an' that's one reason I got out. I wish
you'd call me Mr. McCarthy, please, I intend to be a gen-
tleman, an' try to be. Can you tell me what a gentle-
man is?"

I looked thoughtful and said nothing. Mr. McCar-
thy continued:

"He's a man that don't git drunk or swear or pare
his nails in public, an' always takes off his hat to a lady.
He washes his hands before he goes to the table, an' eats
kind o' slow an' deliberate, an' maybe smokes a fine cigar
after dinner, an' always does as he'd like to be done by.
That's why I'm tryin' to help you along."

I expressed my gratitude in no halfhearted way.

"I like you, dinged if I don't," said Mr. McCarthy,
with a kindly patronage. "You'll git along all right
don't worry."

After a moment of silence:

"Ye see, I'm careful about all these things. I keep
my eyes an* ears open, an' I'm teachin* myself. I hope
I'm a gentleman. But I ain't finished myself yet. You
wait; I'll show ye somethin* one o* these days. How do
you happen to be on the road?"

I told him my story.

"Don't worry," he went on. "Mr. James Henry Mc-
Carthy will see you through. I try to be benevolent."

We walked on a little way in silence.

"I suppose you've noticed that I can sling some rather
big words," he remarked presently. "Well, I always carry
a pocket dictionary, an* when I hear a word I like I look
it up an* chalk it down in my notebook; helps my con-
versation. I study it a good deal while I'm traveling. Ye
see, I never had a chance to go to school much just
learnt how to read an' write an* cipher a little. My knowl-

FINDING CHARACTER 3J

edge ain't very superior. Now, that's quite a word su-
perior. How does it sound?"

"All right," I answered.

"Never used it before found it in the book today.
Fve got about forty dollars saved, an* I've learnt thirty
new words so't I can use 'em. When I go home by an 9 by
they've got to look up to me."

The oddness of it all was not lost upon me, young
as I was. I think often of the frankness of that young
son of America, just beginning to feel his way upward
from the plane of lowly poverty and of his kindly heart.

It was haying time and a kindly farmer offered me
a job that would give me the money I needed. I went
to work in the fields. At night I slept with the hired man
a big, ignorant, good-natured fellow, who bore the
sonorous name of Sam. Often he indulged in autobiog-
raphy that led into highly romantic scenes. He had "took
a shine" to a certain girl.

One evening after a vivid description of her per-
son he said: "I wished you'd write a letter for me which
I could copy and send to her. I want it worded right up
to the mark. You've got learning an' will know how to
write a good, respectable, high-toned letter."

I agreed to do my best for him.

Mr. Baker called us at four, and we dressed and went
into the garden and dug potatoes until breakf asttiine. So
each day began, its work continuing in field, mow, and
milking yard until dark.

Next evening, when we went to our room, with pen
and ink I sat down to write the letter for him.

"To Miss Fannie Comstock, Malone, New York," he
dictated, in a whisper. "Dear Miss."

He sat a moment thinking.

"Tell her I ain't forgot her," he went on, "an' that

36 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I am well an' hope you're the same, an' so on an' so forth."
So I began the letter as follows:

DEAR Miss, It is only a month since we parted, but it has
been a year long, and although I am far away it will surprise
you to learn that I see you often. I see you in the fields every
day and in my dreams every night.

"I don't think that'll do," he demurred soberly, when
I read it to him.

"Why not?" was my query.

"Well, it ain't facts. I ain't seen her on any part o'
this farm an 5 the month ain't had no more'n thirty-one
days in it that's sure."

I tried again with better understanding, and this came
of it.

DEAR Miss, I write these lines to let you know that I am
well and that I haven't forgotten you. I hope that you are well
and that you haven't forgotten me. I am working on a farm,
and am as happy as could be expected.

"That's good," said he, when I read it to him; and
he added proudly, with his finger on the unfinished line,
"Wages, thirty dollars a month."

I did as he wished.

"Now go on," he suggested. "Throw in a big word
once in a while."

"Aren't you going to say anything about love?" I
asked. "A little poem might please her."

"Go light on that," he answered doubtfully. "She's
respectable."

It is a trait of the common clay of which Sam was
made to consider love a thing to be reluctantly, if ever,
confessed. When the grand passion showed itself in his
conduct it was greeted with jeers and rude laughter. It
became, therefore, a hidden, timid thing.

FINDING CHARACTER 37

"Nonsense !" I exclaimed. "She can't be more re-
spectable than love and poetry. If you love her you ought
not to be ashamed of It."

"Well, throw in a little if you think best/' he yielded,
"but do it careful."

So the letter continued:

Lately I've been saving my money. Perhaps you can guess
why. I want a home and someone to help me make it happy,
and I believe I've found her. She is good and beautiful, and all
that a woman should be. Do you want to know who it is? Well,
that's a secret. She's a lady, and that's all I will tell you now.
Fannie, you're a friend of mine, and I need your advice. I am
a little frightened and don't know just what to say to her, and
you could make it easy for me if you would. Please let me know
when I can see you.

Sam shook his head and laughed and exclaimed,
"That's business!"

"No, it's love," I objected.

"Well, it ain't foolish or unproper, an' it sounds kind
o' comical. She'll want to know all about it. Put in that
I'm goin' to take a farm an' be my own boss, an* have
as good a horse an' buggy as anyone. That makes it kind
o' temptin'."

I did as he wished.

"Now say, 'Yours truly, with respect,' " said he, and
so my task was ended.

I had begun to know the world I lived in when I
got back to my home. I think that I knew better than
most people the spirit of the country boys of America.

I recall vividly a bicycle journey to West Salisbury,
Vermont, where I spent a part of my youth. I had entered
a deep valley. On one side of the narrow dirt road was
a steep sidehill where grain was growing. I wondered how

38 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

they could cultivate a slant so difficult. Just ahead of me
a man with a scythe on his arm was walking hurriedly
along the roadside. I dismounted near him and trailed my
wheel, walking as fast as I could to keep up with him.
To my surprise he did not even look at me but held his
pace. He was a rough-barked, old, human oak with a
curious, faded-brown, cocked hat on his head. An iron-
gray mustache emerged from the stubble on his face. To
open conversation I remarked:

"It's a fine day/'

Quickly and without turning to look at me he an-
swered:

"Best in the history o 9 the world."

Evidently this man wished me to understand that he
had no time to waste with idlers on the road. I was a
trifle embarrassed by his indifference. I had to say some-
thing. So I said:

"How did you get your grain into that sidehill?"

"Shot it in with a musket."

The answer came like a flash of gunpowder. It was
startling. He had not looked at me. Again it was up to
me. "What would I say now? In my embarrassment I asked
the foolish question:

"Is that a fact?"

"No, it's conversation."

Again his answer came back like the snapping of
stretched rubber. He was still hurrying along with that
scythe on his arm as if bothered by my curiosity.

I said to myself: "It's time I got down to business."
So I asked:

"Is there anything of interest in this part of the coun-
try?"

For the first time he stopped and turned and looked

FINDING CHARACTER 39

at me and asked: "Did ye notice that I look kind o'
sickly?"

"No," I answered.

"Look ag'in."

I looked into gray eyes that twinkled with amuse-
ment.

"You stop at the first house on the right," he went
on. "A man lives there who began talkin' when he was
two year old an 5 he ain't got through yit. Comes over an 5
calls me out o' bed nights to tell me suthin that he'd for-
got to tell before. He's got a mortgage on my farm an' I
have to listen to him. That's the reason I'm sickly an' kind
o' man-shy. He's wore me out. His memory is a reg'lar
swamp. His wife has to pull him out an' clean him off
every day. If ye step into his mind ye git mired. He ain't
an ass. He's a morass."

This type of man had been familiar to me since my
boyhood but I had never seen an example of the droll
Yankee quite so perfect. More than any man I have known
he stimulated my interest in human nature.

Those Yankees among whom I spent my youth had a
keen sense of humor. There in northern New York was
an unspoiled bit of transplanted New England. The flavor
of the old times still lingered in the life of these pure-
bred, simple folk. The ancient, democratic spirit, the
rugged, stern, uncompromising virtues of the elder race
were there. The cheaper types of the ancient breed were
also in my homeland the closed and narrow intellect, the
braggart, the horse trader, the pettifogger, and the cheat.
I began to think of it as an unworked and promising mine
of material.

A winter day was nearing its end. I was hurrying
across Union Square when near its north side a man with

40 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

a full gray beard accosted me. He was plainly but de-
cently dressed. He spoke politely and with a faint Irish
accent.

"I am hungry, sir."

"So am I" was my answer as I surveyed the man
who was quite sixty years of age. "Come with me and
well have a good dinner together."

He followed me to the Poplars, a well-known and
admirable restaurant opposite the old Continental Hotel
on the south side of Twentieth Street. "We entered the
basement room where was the long and busy bar and
only a few tables. We had one to ourselves in a remote
corner beyond the bar. Turning to my strange guest, I
inquired: "What is your name?"

"John Joseph Smith, sir," he answered.

"Well, Mr. Smith, let's forget our troubles and have
a cheerful time. Shall we begin with cocktails and oysters
on the shell?"

"Not for me, sir. All I want is a piece o' roast beef,
some potatoes, an* a cup o' coffee."

As we ate he told me a bit of his history. He had
been a conductor on the Third Avenue line. Through
an accident he had lost his job. On account of his age he
had found it impossible to get work. He was one of the
many improvident men whom the business of the world
has shaken off its back and was now depending on the
world's charity.

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"At 300 Bowery, sir. I can get a bed there for fifteen
cents a night."

"What's the matter with Mills Hotel?"

"It costs more an* there's too damn many majors an*
colonels there. They talk ye dead. Besides, ye have to get
up at the tap o' the bell."

FINDING CHARACTER 41

the matter with getting up at the tap o'
the bell?"

"I like to dillydally in bed. Besides, if ye're in bed ye
don't git hungry/'

"What do you mean by dillydallying in bed? Do you
lie and think?"

"Yes, sir, an' I'll be buildin' air castles."

"What kind of air castles do you build?"

"Oh, I'll be thinkin' o' the time when I'll have glad
rags an' a shiny top hat on me head an' a gold-headed
cane in me hand an' a roll o' bills in me pocket big enough
to choke an elephant an' I'll be walkin' up Broadway an'
maybe meet some o' the guys I know."

He slashed into his roast beef rather savagely.

"Well, suppose you did what would happen?" I
asked

"I'd be tellin' 'em to go to hell."

How delightfully human was this sweet dream of his!
How full of history!

He told me of his associates in that beggars' hotel at
300 Bowery. He had a patrician contempt for them. He
was the aristocrat of the place. Thieves were there. He
gave me an idea of their methods. He said that in their
thieving they went upstairs backwards so they could
shift their direction quickly if taken by surprise.

This remark of his I have not forgotten: "Most o'
them lazy beggars set around be the fire all day readin'
the papers an' when night comes they git shoved out on
the street to study astronomy."

Here was a character who delighted me. He became
an inmate of my little private museum but I never saw
him again. He reminded me of my desire to write. Every-
where I was meeting men whose originality flung out a
challenge.

4. THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER

I HAVB been asked to look back upon my failures and
try to explain how I succeeded in achieving them, on the
chance that some may find help and courage in what I
shall write. It is a chance worth taking, although in tak-
ing it I am likely to achieve another failure. When I was
about forty I learned better than to be afraid of failures.
Indeed, lately I have grown rather proud of my list of
them! What an amount of worry and pain they caused
me when they were happening! Now, as I look back, how
the scene is changed! The people on the stage have grown
so kindly and benevolent even the worst of them. Then,
too, the failures to which they contributed have been so
worth while. The whole structure of my life, poor as it
is, seems to rest upon them pretty evenly and firmly.

I pity the man who has no failures to his credit, whose
way has been smooth and prosperous from beginning to
end, because such a man may even be riding to the only
tragic failure there is that of life itself.

The thing that most often tends to poverty is the
thing we call '"success." If one's failures have been honestly
achieved by hard and long-continued effort, they become
highly useful and convincing.

After leaving college I became a reporter in New
York. My own view is that I achieved a failure in that
job, although I did some good work. One needed what
was called "nerve" for the best success in reporting, and
I was a green country boy. I hated to push myself into
situations where I was not quite welcome.

42

THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER 43

I got my foothold through a happy accident. I was
asked to make a tour of the hotels and write a column
about them and the people they fed and sheltered. The
newspapers were often telling of country folk who came
to town and blew out the gas. I started my little screed
with these lines of doggerel:

The countryman comes from his rural retreat,
Worn out with excitement he stands on the street
And waits for the endless procession to pass,
Then goes to his tavern and blows out the gas.
' e l can't live in this hell," he wrote in a letter,
"So I'm makin' a change an' I guess for the better."

I had done a fairly good job of reporting but this
bit of fool verse put me aboard ship and on my way. It
got a laugh from the captain, at which I wonder. But
the laugh was a help to me. After all, people do love to
laugh.

Soon after this I had a hard struggle in about the most
difficult kind of business that any man ever attempted. I
was a pioneer in the newspaper syndicate business. I re-
member hearing my friend Andrew Carnegie say: "Beware
of pioneering. The pioneer generally fails and others will
reap where he sowed. 35

I had written a sketch of Henry Irving just before
he began his first American tour. It pleased the great ac-
tor, and on his arrival in New York he invited me to
come and meet him at his hotel. There I met also Joseph
Hatton, an English novelist who had come over to write
Mr. Irving's impressions of America. It was he who in-
spired me to try my talents in this new field. I started
with one of his novels, and made five hundred dollars out
of it. I have never enjoyed such a sense of opulence as
that money gave me never. Mr. Hatton then proposed

44 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

a series of interview sketches with England's great men:
Gladstone, Ruskin, Swinburne, Tennyson, William Black,
and others. These were to be the attractive features in a
series of fifty-two letters from London to be published
simultaneously in cities far apart.

Then came the first of many journeys up and down
the continent. I slept on Pullman cars; I climbed innumer-
able flights of stairs, often late at night, to ratty editorial
rooms in all the big cities. After twelve years of it I esti-
mated that I had traveled seven hundred miles up stairs
and down in quest of managing editors. There was a steep
grade in the way of the syndicate man those days.

Well, this first trip succeeded handsomely. I made
contracts which insured me an income of forty dollars a
week for a year. This enabled me to give up my place on
the Brooklyn Daily Times and devote all my energy to the
development of syndicate journalism. I had little to give it
save energy and imagination. I remember that my friend,
Governor Flower, who came from the north country, lis-
tened to my plan and said:

"It's a good idea and I'm going to give you two hun-
dred and fifty dollars to help you along/'

It tided me over a difficult situation. It is the only
financial help I had from anyone in those hard days of my
pioneering. It was a tough game. I was favored by the
friendly counsel of editors and publishers and by the
kindly consideration of writers. Slowly the little business
grew, until my name was on the pay rolls of all but three
of the leading newspapers, and most of the authors of in-
ternational fame were contributing to its service.

One thing I did that was really worth while those
days: I doubled the pay of the author for serial rights. It
happened when I first secured Conan Doyle as a contribu-
tor. He was then getting about $68 a thousand words. I

THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER 4J

offered him $130, and he came with me. The effect was
the doubling of rates all along the first rank of author-
ship, and those prices have since increased, not diminished.

Now and then there came a day of great elation in
these years of toil. One was that day when a bundle of
manuscript by various authors came back from a maga-
zine, but not the little tale I had written.

I had a brother, Wilber, who was an abler business-
man than I, and he was a great help to me. I was prosper-
ing. I had a comfortable cash balance. The hard times of
1893 did not bother me.

A beautiful side issue, with a blue ribbon on its neck,
was led into my office one day by a man of proved ability.
The side issue was a weekly advertising journal. After
careful consideration of his plan I agreed to back him.
For a year he did well. Then he and his friends got a new
idea. It seemed to be that of consuming all the whisky in
Park Row and its vicinity. Soon I had that weekly adver-
tising journal on my hands. It was one of the hungriest
dogs I have known.

In the end I had to sell my business. I sold for just
enough to pay all its debts. I had scored a failure, but
not in the courts. It worried me because I had a wife to
care for. Still, as a revelation of the courage of that
woman, it was worth all it cost.

We had friends many good friends. One of them
said to me: "Times are improving* 111 back you for a little
speculation and take all the risk myself/*

At any other time in my life I would have said no
to a friend making me so generous a proposition. But I
was in need of money and, moreover, the plan looked
good.

"We tried it in a thousand-share lot of stocks ap-
proved by conservative judgment. Suddenly one day the

46 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

thunderbolt of the Boer War fell on the market and prices
crumbled. Later my friend had a tip that Third Avenue
was going down and that it could be sold for a large profit.
He ordered the broker to sell 500 shares short. Within
three days when all the "suckers" as they call them in
Wall Street had taken the bait. Third Avenue began a
violent rise. That was Wall Street's polite way of picking
pockets.

We got back a part of our money by covering and
then we gave up. The worst of it all was this: my friend
lost a considerable sum and the thought of it gives me a
pang in spite of the fact that he was a rich man.

That painful failure is one of the most valuable in my
collection.

Another friend owned a magazine. He wanted me to
go with him as an editor. He was a good fellow but I knew
that he was difficult. For some reason his editorial staff
had been flowing in and out like sand in an hourglass. The
shifting was one of the jokes of the literary crowd in
New York.

I went to him with a contract for two years. I stayed
about two months. This time I failed because I could not
put up with brutality, and again I was worried. I had some
debts and only a few hundred dollars in the bank. But like
all the others, this failure was heading me toward the
thing I really wanted to do. For a year I had had an idea
in mind. Beloved memories of my old home were stirring
in me. I had written some stuff and went to spend a night
with my friend Walter H. Page in Cambridge. He had
read my script. He was then editing the Atlantic.

"It's good," he said. "Some of it got under my vest.
But you need a plan to hold it together."

Again I had failed and rather fortunately. That dear-

THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER 47

est of men Lad told me the truth. I was depressed but on
the way to better things.

Suddenly my plan arrived. I went to work on it as
soon as I left that magazine. I began writing in our little
flat in Tarrytown. My wife was delighted with my copy.
The work was interrupted by a call to the editorial staff
of the World. I spent a year and a half in that office. Then
I got a leave of absence to finish the book. Before it was
finished I had made a contract for another book. So my
newspaper career came to its end.

My book was published on July eleventh. Before
Christmas my royalties had reached a figure amazing to
my wife and me. Our problems were solved. Hundreds of
letters came from people I was never to see, expressing
approval and even a warm affection for me and the book.
It reminded me of the line from "Whitman:

Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?

Still I did not take that too seriously, knowing as I
did that popularity may pass as quickly as it comes. Yet,
I must say, those letters were the part of our reward that
gave us great satisfaction, and was it not all the product
of many failures?

Some years later a letter came from the late Bert
Boyden, then the editor of a highly popular magazine. He
said that he was enclosing an article from a man who
had been my secretary and he requested that I write for
his magazine an essay on "The Rungs in My Ladder/*

My former secretary had indulged in some undeserved
adulation of my character as a man in a prize competi-
tion.

I wrote of the rungs in my ladder and I now felt
qualified to present kindness as one of them. In all my re-

48 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

lations I have tried to think of the other fellow. Nearly
all the rungs were represented by the word "failure."

The rung of kindness had put me into delightful re-
lations with that magazine, which continued for many
years.

Now and then I have seen distress and poverty end-
ing in grim tragedy of disappointment among those who
had come to New York with cheerful optimism to bet
on their literary talents. It was a desperate gamble at
which not many could hope to succeed. A man may toil
night and day until his last cent is gone and his heart
is under his arm when he goes to the publisher. He is be-
hind in his room rent, he has lived for weeks on cheap
porridge or the hospitality of friends. His clothing is
shabby. He is perhaps hungry when he calls for his an-
swer. It is heartbreaking to learn that the kindly editor has
no use for the script into which his heart's blood has
flown. At that moment he would trade his manuscript for
a pound of beefsteak, yet he can't.

He may have in his hands a piece of property that
will sometime be worth a large sum of money as did Ed-
ward Westcott and Stephen Crane, who tramped vainly
from one publisher to another with dreams, richly carved
in ivory so that the world has loved them, yet for a time
they were not worth the price of a good dinner. I have
seen much of that and I advise the young who seek my
counsel to take no desperate gamble with their talents. It
may be a long wait and there should be little question as
to the matter of food and lodging while it lasts.

One must have material thorough and accurate
knowledge of some kind of life. The young are likely to
forget this. It is easy to write if one knows his theme so
well that he feels the urge of it. Then the work is largely
that of organization. Experience is assuredly the great

THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER 49

teacher. Yet the constructive imagination can profit much
by the experience of others. Crane did that, yet he knew
his subject better even than did the reporters of bloody
battles whose work he had studied. Between their lines he
had found the psychology of battles.

As a gateway to experience the newspaper may be of
real service to the keen observer. I have thought much of
the thrilling epic which my friend John A. Cockerill, the
most brilliant managing editor of his time, was fond of
telling. He came from a wilder West than we know. He
was a rough-tongued man. I present a version that is in
some degree expurgated. The bursting expletives of the
colonel may be imagined. The story ran about as follows:

When I was city editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer I
was working at my desk one day when I became aware
that someone was standing by my side. I looked up at a
slim, shabby, sallow youth whose dark eyes were covered
by spectacles.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"I hope that you can give me a job, sir," he answered
in a lifeless, melancholy tone.

A little annoyed I shot these words at him the usual
answer: "Hell, no! I have more people now than I can
use."

I have never forgotten the pathetic look of the boy
as he turned away and walked toward the door. He walked
like a man going to the gallows.

"See here, young man," I called, "go and sit down
in the corner there. I may get a chance to try you out be-
fore the day ends."

He sat in the corner and I forgot he was there. In
about an hour hell had broke loose in the pork city. Some
wooden buildings had got afire and floods of flame, leap-

5O FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ing sidewise in the wind, were tearing the guts out of the
town. Alarm after alarm was coming in. Then came a
lively ten minutes. I sent out every available man of the
city staff and every editor in the office to get the news.
When the last of them had hot-footed down stairs bound
for the battle front I returned to my desk. There in the
corner sat the sallow, dejected, spectacled, shabby, young
farmer from God-knew- where. I laughed and called out:

"Say, young man, the town is burning up. Go out
and see if you can get a story to write."

"Very well, sir!" he answered and away he went.

Again I forgot all about him. Midnight arrived after
a hectic day. The history of one of the worst days in the
history of the town had been written. Many of the forms
were made up. I was at my desk when in strolled that
shabby guy with the spectacles. He'd been gone long
enough to be dead, buried, and forgotten. Once more I
laughed and said:

"So you're back again. Did you get a good story?"

"I think I did, sir."

"Sit down and write it quick," I shouted. "We'll be
going to press soon."

I watched him as he sat down at a desk and began
to write, his eyes down close to his pencil. That poor yokel,
who looked as if he had been sleeping a week in a hay-
mow, amused me.

In about ten minutes I went over and picked up
the sheets he had written, expecting to chuck them into
the wastebasket and tell him to quit. I read the sheets in
my hand. My boy! I got that little vibration that goes up
your spine and stirs the roots of your hair. Gosh t'al-
mighty! No such copy had ever come to my hand. It was
the work of a master. Here was a power as great as that
of the devouring flames. I can never forget how vividly

THE RUNGS IN MY LADDER JI

he reproduced the stir and tumult and terror of the
crowds, the psychology of a man poised in a high window
and finally leaping for his life. I looked at the clock.

"How much can you write of this?" I asked.

"As much as you like, sir/' he answered without look-
ing up.

"Keep at it," I said and gathering what he had writ-
ten I ran up the stairway two steps at a time to the chiefs
room. I put the sheets on his desk and said: "Read that."

He read them to the last word and asked:

"Who is writing this?"

"A poor devil who drifted in here today." ,

"Tell him to keep at it until one-fifteen. Kill enough
stuff on the first page to make room for his story."

I did. It was a famous story. It is one of the glowing
peaks in my memory. It was the first rung in the long lad-
der of Laf cadio Hearn.

In this business you never know when you're going
to meet up with an angel. They may even wear spectacles
and look like a tramp printer after a spree.

5. GREAT MEN OF MY TIME
Actor Artist Author Statesman

who were coming to manhood and womanhood in
the early eighties have one great obligation to acknowl-
edge. The stage had arrived at a summit of power and in-
fluence for which, I think, there is no parallel in its long
history. The great passions of man, the dignity and power
of the human spirit were illumined with the flashing light
of inspired genius. One who lived in that time had good
reason to thank God for his eyes and ears. No power that
I have felt since I came to years of understanding can
for a moment be compared with that golden age of in-
terpretation. Every man will bow his head who felt the
godlike gifts of Salvini, Booth, Irving, Barrett, Bernhardt,
Coquelin, Jefferson, Modjeska, Ristori, Janauchek. And
why? Well, each of these great men and women would
have given him undying memories.

To see Booth in Hamlet, Macbeth, or The Fool's Re-
venge; Salvini as Conrad or Othello; Irving as Shylock
or in The Bells; Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle or The Rivals,
was to know that something had happened to you. For a
long time you were thinking and speaking of it and some
part of this something would go along up the road with
you. In clubs and hotels and at dinner tables the theater
furnished the main topic of conversation.

There were lesser and really moving interpreters like
McCullough, O'Neil, Florence, Clara Morris, Edwin
Thorne, and F. F. Mackaye, as well as the several admi-

52

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 53

rable companies of Daly, Wallack, Palmer and Frohman.

The greatest man of these distinguished interpreters
of the drama was undoubtedly Tommaso Salvini.

We used to read of supermen. Some of them have
been thoroughly unsupered. No one can be safely supered
until he has been dead at least fifty years. Still, Salvini was
a towering man and no other could have done the things
he did.

How true were the words of Emma Lazarus a dis-
tinguished poet of that time who thus presents the big
items in his personality:

An incomparably majestic bearing with perfect grace of
movement a frame of massive and harmonious proportions
filled with the genius of tragedy; a voice of great depth and
volume, capable of exquisite modulation. It haunts one like
noble music.

I lived through a time when the stage had become
the most powerful interpreter and exponent of the spirit
of man. It must be admitted, I think, that never in its
history had it achieved an influence so irresistibly com-
manding and deserved. Human nature toiling slowly up-
ward, through ages unknown and known, is a rather big
and important institution. The stage has flung a revealing
light upon its tragic adventures. Salvini, Booth, Barrett,
Irving, Bernhardt, Modjeska, and McCullough gave their
strength to no trivial stuff. They cast their plummets into
great depths of tragic experience in Hamlet, Macbeth,
Othello, Cassius, Richelieu, Louis XI, Mathias, Conrad,
Fedora, Canaille. There was none in the list whose work
could be forgotten. It lived with one a beloved memory
that had its effect upon thought and character. One's heart
and mind went with them to the heights and depths of
human adventure, and came back wiser and stronger. The

54 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

great eras of the stage have been separated by thousands of
years the jump from Euripides to Shakespeare. When
will the world see again a like climax in the art of the
theater?

Salvini was the incomparable master of all the great
players. Probably his equal had not been seen before. He
alone could fill the gigantic molds of Shakespeare with
that strength to spare which gave his effort an overwhelm-
ing power.

I saw his Othello thirteen times. It was immensely
impressive to see the heroic, honest Moor take on the
pantherlike stride and face as his mind began to lose its
poise. I remember, as he sat by his desk writing with a
long plumed pen, how lago bent over him with a tongue
like a burning flame. Othello twirled the pen between
thumb and finger so that its plume lashed the air, like the
tail of a great cat, and the writhing of his heart was
in the look on his face. It was like some big cosmic dis-
turbance. It filled the spectator with a shaking awe.

What remarkable scenes we often witnessed before
the last curtain fell! After some tremendous climax, at
the end of an act, men would leap over the footlights to
embrace the master. His lines were in Italian, yet never
for a moment was one in doubt of his meaning.

I spent the winter of 1913 in Italy. Salvini was then
well over eighty years of age. When we arrived in Flor-
ence I wrote to the great master and said that I must
see him, if possible, once more. He immediately sent a
letter to me written by his own hand.

Agreeably with his invitation, I went to his villa next
morning. I passed through a gate in the high latticed fence
of a garden and was at once near the door of his modest
home. Salvini met me there. His hair and mustache, black
when I had last seen him, were now white as snow. Where

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME JJ

was the proud, erect, majestic figure so admirable as he
said: "My very worthy and approved good masters"? What
a change time had wrought in him! He was bent a little
and suffering from sciatica.

We went into the house and sat down together. I told
him of my careful study of his work as Othello. I re-
minded him of many bits of business, like that of the
waving plume, which had illumined the character and
filled it with a fascinating power.

He then told me that his friends had discouraged
him when he first thought of going to America. They had
said: "You do not speak English. The Americans will not
understand you."

At last he decided to try it because America was the
best market for the best art. He organized a company of
English-speaking players. After many rehearsals he began
his tour in Philadelphia. The theater was crowded. Soon
it was filled with a kind of enthusiasm, the like of which
America had never seen. People not in the audience were
thrilled and amazed by newspaper accounts of what had
happened. Next day long lines of people were slowly ap-
proaching the ticket office.

I can never forget the emotion in his face when he
told of men leaping over the footlights to embrace him
at the end of two of the acts. There were big tears in
his eyes. I felt a touch of the old power in those wonder-
ful eyes when he spoke of that day of triumph. What
lightning flashes had flown out of them as some great,
thunderous, organ note of anger issued from his lips!

Now he was cheerfully and gracefully playing the
part of an old man condemned to the common fate. In
his case one could not but feel the injustice of the decree.

The spirit of this man was a thing infinitely above
the failing house of flesh in which it was then living. My

56 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

feeling was that his spirit had grown beyond the accom-
modation of the old house. The houses of this world fall
into decay and their tenants have soon or late to leave
them. This man was in need of a new and even nobler
house than the old one. It was justly due him.

One of the great artists of my time came from my
home town of Canton, although, during his boyhood, his
family moved to Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence, some
eighteen miles north of us. His name was Frederic Sack-
rider Remington. His mother *s family, from whom he got
his middle name, were from Canton, and what a jolly
crowd they were!

Old Deacon Sackrider had a hardware store and there
one heard many a good story and much hearty laughter.
A deacon of the Presbyterian Church, when he went up
into the wilderness every summer for a week of camp-
ing and fishing, he would playfully throw down his coat
when he got to camp and say: "Deacon, you lie there till
Fm ready to go back to town."

All the elder Remingtons whom I knew, were, except
one, able but serious-minded business folk. That one ex-
ception was "Mart" Remington a man of wit and imag-
ination who was for a time editor of the Albany Journal,
if I remember rightly. He was an uncle of Frederic. He
wrote a humorous poem, about a certain event in Can-
ton which lived only in the memory of the wags of the
town. It was a lovely bit of good-natured satire.

As a boy Frederic Remington came often to visit his
relatives in Canton. He was a rather short, fat boy, and
always "terribly dressed up," we boys used to think, in
spotless garments and a straw hat with two or three colors
on its band. He was a lively boy who talked in a loud
voice.

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 57

He went to Yale and then into the Far West, where
the picturesque attitudes and movements of plainsman
and horse captured his imagination, and he began to put
his own vision of them on paper and canvas. He had be-
come a famous artist while I was building up my news-
paper syndicate in New York. We met one day on Park
Row, went into a cafe, and sat down together for a long
talk. He wanted to know about my work and plans.
Bliss Carman had just accepted a ballad of mine which
became extremely popular. I had a proof of it in my
pocket.

When we parted I gave him the proof and said:
"Take that along with you, old man. I'll give you a license
not to read it. You'll find it will burn as well as any
other piece of paper." He saw and felt the pictures that
I had tried to present in my phrasing, and wrote me a
most encouraging letter about them. Fred Remington was
that kind of man. He liked to help some other fellow
who was climbing the hill. He was soon to show the world
that he was an artist in putting color into words. I shall
never forget how vividly he could describe a scene in his
talk or in his writing.

Within a year he illustrated a bit of my stuff for Cos-
mopolitan. I saw him often after that. At Cedar Island
in the St. Lawrence, where he had a cottage for the sum-
mer, he showed me how a plainsman talks as he pours
his whisky from a jug held on his shoulder.

Often he returned to Canton and his favorite loafing
place was a shoe box in front of Joseph Ellsworth's shoe
store much used by those who enjoyed conversation on
a summer evening. There he loved to sit with the wits of
the town and tell his stories of the Far West. Their laugh-
ter soon attracted a crowd of listeners.

After war was declared against Spain I went to the

58 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

big training camps as a correspondent for Cosmopolitan.
I accompanied Generals Joe Wheeler and O. O. Howard
from Chickamauga to the Tampa Bay Hotel where a great
corps of correspondents were quartered. The immense
camp was on a level plain some miles away.

Next day I went out to the camp to see it and my
friend General Guy V. Henry, with whom I had been
quartered at Chickamauga, The sun was setting as I
tramped back toward the entrance. I passed a line of of-
ficers' horses hitched to posts. One of them had got his
neck under the hitching strap and was in trouble. I went
to his head to relieve him when I heard the shouted com-
mand: "Keep away from that horse."

The command was followed by a loud laugh near
me. I turned and saw Fred Remington. That kind of greet-
ing was characteristic. We had a delightful hour together
in the evening. Soon I returned to New York and did not
see him again for a year or more. He lived in New Ro~
chelle and I at Riverside, Connecticut, and he was rarely
in New York. Now and then we passed each other. There
was time for only a hurried word "and a wave of the hand.
How characteristic of life in the metropolitan area!

Remington had a gentle and devoted wife. He spent
the last year of his life in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where
in midwinter he died after an operation. I went to his
funeral up in the snowy hills. I returned with Augustus
Thomas and E. W. Kemble. Thomas, long his neighbor,
told me that Fred suffered from an ailment which made
it necessary for him to stay quietly at home. For a year
his wife had succeeded in keeping him there and his
health improved. At last it became necessary for him to
go to New York. His wife was not able to go with him.
He promised to finish his business and return promptly,
He was cold and he stopped at the Players Club to get

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 59

warm. Before its ample fireside old friends gathered around
him. He had a joyful afternoon of laughter, storytelling,
and good fellowship. Fred loved that kind of thing. He
had a deep-seated humanity. His acute trouble returned
with him to his home. The demand for a dreaded opera-
tion, full of peril for one with his thick abdominal wall,
was now imperative, and the life of a beloved man and
a great artist came to its end.

I was cruising in my little trading brig under the
lofty ramparts of literature. With a cheery confidence I
had seen Holmes and Whittier, who had no desire for the
publicity I offered. I went to Hartford to see Mark Twain.
He sat with his feet on a broad window sill looking out on
a winter landscape as he smoked a pipe.

"No, I don't need anyone to reject my stuff for me/*
he drawled. "I do it myself. Feed it into the fireplace. It
burns well, I can say that for it. There are days when I
think that what I need is some fellow at ten dollars a
week to write it for me."

I got acquainted with him later and one day he went
to luncheon with me at the Sign of the Lanthorne. At the
table he said: "Yes, I'll have some mince pie. When a thing
don't agree with me I keep at it until one or the other
of us gets the best of the argument."

The luncheon over, he sat down before the fire in
a cushioned armchair, with his feet on a stool, and with
an ever-plentiful supply of hot Scotch and rich Cuban
cigars on a tray beside him, he showered upon us the riches
in his memory. With the atmosphere and the accessories
favorable and his feet exactly in the proper latitude, Mark
Twain was at his best. Never with his feet on a platform
or resting under a table. We had a season of storytelling

60 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

for the like of which I think one would need to go back
to Rabelais and the rire awx eclats at his round table.

Was it the glad welcome and the flowing bowl that
reminded him of going back on the old river, incognito*
with a silk hat and fine top coat long after his career at
the wheel had ended? The first story related to the thrill-
ing lies of Rob Styles in the pilothouse, where he told of
dredging the alligators out of the river and said, "There
is nothing that an alligator hates like bein' dredged.'*
What a perigee tide of humor! That story opened the door
to other curious adventures. They were all in the book
but there they lacked the color and the vivifying em-
phasis with which they now flowed from his lips, em-
bellished by the fluent, sonorous, affectionate profanity of
the old West. He had lately returned from his long trip
around the world. With the exquisite art of the true
comedian he told of his amusing adventures in that tour,
and stayed with us until the shades of night were fall-
ing. At last he arose and drawled, as he brushed the cigar
ashes from his garments, "I've been talkin' for hours an*
I've enjoyed every damn word of it."

I remember a night when I sat next to Arthur Chan-
dler at one of Colonel Harvey's dinners. It was a compli-
ment to William Dean Howells on his birthday. Some
thirty men were present and we sat at a big round table.
Mark Twain was there and he did a characteristic thing.
The coffee was coming in.

Chandler said to me: "Let's go out and get ready
for a long sit while the speeches are being made."

We went out and found Mark Twain walking up and
down in the anteroom with his hands in his pockets. Evi-
dently he was thinking of his speech. We hurried along
to avoid interrupting his cogitations. He called to us and
we went to his side. He told us two bully stories spicy

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 6l

enough to curl one's hair. Soon we were, called to the
table.

When Twain was introduced he rose and said: "All
the evening I have been trying to think o something
worthy of the subject. You other fellows wouldn't bother
me a bit, but Howells is different. I went to the room
across the hall to discover something in my mind that
would be worth saying. I was making progress when along
came Bacheller and Chandler and began to tell me obscene
stories."

Everyone laughed and Chandler and I were more
amused than any of the others.

He gave us then the only account that he ever gave,
except privately to his intimates, of his one and only fail-
ure as an after dinner speaker.

In a delightfully satirical way he told of that birth-
day dinner to Whittier in Boston and his vain effort to
amuse the great men of the city of culture who had gath-
ered there. He did not give us an idea of the reason for
his failure but I have heard, and I suppose it is true, that
he had imagined a number of characters in a far western
mining camp who were nicknamed for the gods of New
England and locally known as Hank Longfellow, Ollie
Holmes, Raf e Emerson, and Jack Whittier. The climax of
the speech was said to be a red-hot quarrel in a saloon. It
was a clever piece of wit. In almost any other time it
would have captured its audience. But it was then sadly
misplaced. Boston was the Olympus of human gods not to
be trifled with. There they were on the dais. Who was
this impudent, redheaded man from the West? His wit
could not compete with their icy frowns. It fell like a
cold rain, everyone shivering and uncomfortable.

He said in describing the scene:

"You can imagine the effect upon me of a speech,

62 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ostensibly humorous, that could not break the Ice with a
single smile. When the party ended, under the silence
what a hurricane of emotion! I crept out of the ruins
and was glad to be able to stand up. I said to Ho wells:
'Well, old man, I've made a fool of myself, 3 and he agreed
with me. Not verbally but facially. He was always polite.
Nobody would look at me as I left the place. I was even
snubbed by a third-rate poetess/*

I have some letters from him. This one is too good
to be lost:

DEAR IRVING BACHEIXER,

The book has this moment arrived, just as I had finished
my day's mail and profanity. I have written 38 letters today
(as usual, not sure it isn't 48) without help and this one is
the very first I find pleasure in writing. A thousand thanks;
have longed for the book. My odious labors are done. I will
curse out the remnant of blasphemy left in stock, then stretch
out with a pipe and have a good time.

Yours ever,

MARK

Two careers in my time have been inspirational and
much alike how much alike only a few know. They are
the careers of two men of the soil: Abraham Lincoln and
Frank Billings Kellogg. They were alike in their early en-
vironment and toil, in their gift for putting great truths
in a few simple words winged for travel, in their lofty
vision of human service. They were the sons of cabineers.
Both of them as boys studied law on time stolen from
the hours needed for sleep. Kellogg will grow, as Lincoln
grew, in the silence that has fallen upon him.

He was my friend, born within three miles of my
birthplace in northern New York. We rode together to
scenes familiar in his childhood at Crary Mills and beyond

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 63

toward Potsdam where stood the old Billings home. From
there the Kelloggs went to live on Long Lake far in the
deep wilderness. "Way up the Raquette" we would have
said of that locality long ago. There the boy Frank, like
young Abe Lincoln, had the unpolluted air of the wild
country to breathe, and saw and felt the beauty of the
primeval forest. There he would have seen the hunters
and trappers of the old time and sportsmen coming in
from the cities. No better place could have been found
in which to lay the foundation of the rugged strength
that was in Frank Kellogg. His father and mother were
good people. There was no school in the wild country but
they helped and encouraged the boy in his reading, writ-
ing, and ciphering. They probably represented the lum-
ber interests of some large holders of forest land. They
lived in a comfortable log cabin near the lake.

Frank was a little more than nine years old when
his father and mother decided to give up their work there
and go west. Many people in the north country were going
west those days. My father had ''the western fever" but
he was anchored with a large farm and a big herd of cat-
tle. The Kelloggs had only a wagon, a team of horses, and
not much more cash than was needed for the journey.
They set out for the open country on rough lumber roads.
They arrived at Ogdensburg and ferried across the St.
Lawrence to Prescott. Traveling by wagon was too slow
for them. They sold the outfit and took a train on the
Grand Trunk Railroad westward bound.

Minnesota was the broad destination in their minds.
They had read much about it. St. Paul and Minneapolis
were growing rapidly. It was a wonderful wheat country
with the Mississippi and the great lake chain on either side
and railroads for transportation. James J. Hill had begun
his great work of development in the Northwest. He was

64 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

advertising its advantages and many were headed for that
land of promise.

The Kelloggs got off at the thriving town of Roches-
ter and began there to look for desirable land. They found
it in the township of Viola in Olmsted County where they
built a cabin and started their work. In that little home
Frank began the hard, early and late, toil of the only
son of a pioneer farmer: chores, milking, feeding, plow-
ing, seeding, harrowing, weeding, harvesting, woodcutting
spring work, fall work and winter work.

There was a little one-room schoolhouse not far from
the farm. In the winter season when the land was at rest
under deep snow and there was little for the boy to do
except chores, he went to this humble seat of learn-
ing. He learned easily and had a retentive memory. The
Irishman who taught the school was an uplooking,
scholarly man. He liked the studious, quiet, well-behaved
boy from the East. They were soon on friendly terms.
In his later life Frank Kellogg told me that the leading
of this good man had done much for him. Memorizing
and reciting the historical sketches of the Reverend Elijah
Kellogg and long passages from the speeches of James
Otis, Daniel Webster, and Patrick Henry did more to
shape his ambition and improve his literary talent than
any other part of his work in that little school. These
things were in the reading books of that time.

The spirit, the rhythm, and the powerful phrasing
of these masters got into his mind and lived there through
the years in which his strength was growing. He recited
well, and the teacher told him and his parents that he
would make a great lawyer. Frank's ambition to be a law-
yer was strengthened by a day in court at the county
seat where he heard the pleading of distinguished men.

It is an interesting fact that all the boys of that and

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 65

an elder time had memories well stored with treasure from
the great literature of the world. They could repeat poems
by Scott, Burns, Tennyson, and Holmes, passages from
Shakespeare, Milton, and Shelley. They lived with immor-
tal words and their import became a spiritual force. It was,
I think, true of Conkling, Evarts, Blaine, Rufus Choate,
Charles O'Conor.

Greater than most of these shining lights of the bar
was Frank B. Kellogg and in spite of an almost unbeliev-
able fact in his history. This little one-room school was
his academy, his college, his university. What better evi-
dence of the value in American life of the tiny country
schoolhouse and a memory trained to hold the phrasing of
great ideals? When he got to his young manhood his
muscles had been hardened by the ax, the scythe, the
shovel, and the pitchfork.

The farm and the open air had given him rugged
health but that was perhaps the smallest item in his pos-
sessions. He had achieved the patience that comes from
heavy toil and that indefinable thing that comes of never
breaking faith with his duty. Another great thing that a
boy gets from beginning young to earn his living is com-
mon sense. It comes from observing, day after day, year
after year, cause and effect in your own action. Both Lin-
coln and Kellogg got it that way.

After much observation I have come to think that
patience is an indispensable quality of the great man. It
was one of Lincoln's best spiritual assets, without which he
could not have borne the abuse and misunderstanding of
really important people and have held his course to the
triumphant end in his vision. I am sure that he got it, as
Kellogg did, from the toil in his early life. It is easier to
get big things then than later.

There were two law firms in the town of Rochester.

66 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

One of them was an influential partnership of able men,
The timid, swarthy, plainly clad, hard-handed farm boy
first went to them. One can imagine the smile with which
they looked upon the rustic youth and questioned him
as to his schooling. He had nothing to commend him but
good character and the knowledge of reading, writing,
geography, and arithmetic gained in a district school.
Moreover, he was poor. Student clerks worked a long time
for nothing in every law office, and how could this boy
live through his years of study and dress himself decently?

Frank told them that he would try to find a place
where he could work for his board. To these able lawyers
that was not an attractive proposition. They wanted for
a clerk some smart, well-dressed young fellow who was a
college graduate. So they politely but firmly declined, and
Frank went to a firm of lawyers not so well known. Its
leading member was a good, old-school lawyer of the name
of H. A. Eckholdt. He liked the farm boy. Yes, he would
take him into the office and give him instruction and law-
books to read. Frank would have to do the office chores,
which included sweeping, dusting, and going here and
there on errands.

This important event came in midwinter. Frank
found a farmer near town who would board him if he
would do the farm chores. So his career in the law began
in a corner of that office with Blackstone's Commentaries
in his brawny hands. His brain was as brawny as his hands
and soon Mr. Eckholdt was surprised by the boy's knowl-
edge of the common law which, after all, was mostly com-
mon sense, and Frank was loaded with that.

In the spring he worked for a farmer through seed-
time for $13 a month. In the late summer and early
autumn he worked in the harvest fields for $ i y a month.
Then back again to his studies Greenleaf on Law of

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 6j

Evidence, Parsons on Contracts, and other classic authori-
ties.

After about two years of this struggle to keep alive
and presentable while he was learning the law the great
day came when he was to be examined for admission to
the bar. He appeared before Judge Mitchell, later a mem-
ber of the Supreme Court, Judge Start, later chief jus-
tice of the Minnesota Court, and C. C. Wilson, the lead-
ing lawyer of Rochester.

Frank had been overworking. He was nervous. "Rat-
tled" was the word he used in describing his condition.
He floundered not a little in some of his answers. Yet the
committee liked the young man. It went into conference.
The kindly Judge Start said that the fellow knew more
law than he was able to express in his answers. Wilson
thought that he wouldn't do. Judge Mitchell announced:
*Tm going to license him. That young fellow has some-
thing in him that convinces me."

The credentials were issued and Frank was a lawyer*
He began his practice in his home county. He went to
Pleasant Grove and tried his first case before a justice of
the peace named Peek Pattridge. He won it and received
the fee of $3 in silver quarters. The farmer had agreed to
take him home with his team but failed to do so and
Frank had to walk twelve miles with the silver jingling in
his pocket and singing of better times ahead. They came
when he was made county attorney. In that position his
talents attracted the attention of the eminent lawyers of
the state. For years the Winona and St. Peter Railroad
had owed a large sum to two towns in the county for
bonds issued. The best lawyers had been unable to get
the money. Frank Kellogg sued and with a powerful brief
got a verdict for $200,000.

He was now firmly on his feet. Country practice was

68 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

not for him. He opened an office in St. Paul where his
distinguished talent was so admired by the leading lawyer
of that growing city, Cushman K. Davis, that he offered
Frank Kellogg a partnership. Not long after that Theo-
dore Roosevelt selected him as the one lawyer in the land
fit for an immense task which he conceived to be in the
interest of the people of the United States. Frank was
then undoubtedly the most distinguished lawyer on this
continent.

Since then the career of this Minnesota farm boy is
a part of the history of our country. The honors won or
showered upon him would have been sufficient to distin-
guish at least half a dozen men. He became United States
senator, Secretary of State, minister to the Court of St.
James's, judge of the World Court, author of the Peace
Treaty, winner of the Nobel Prize, and received a doc-
torate at Oxford University. I was in the room with him
in Paris when he sat among the rulers of the world, him-
self their leader. It was a great thing that he and Briand
had accomplished in bringing the nations into accord and
against war as a remedy for human dissatisfaction. Surely
the moral effect of it has been great and not for at least
a century can that effect on the conscience of mankind
be measured. Historically he is now, I think, the most
eminent figure of his time.

I saw much of him after that in my house and else-
where a modest, kindly, unpretentious man.

I have said that his career is notably like Lincoln's.
This is not merely a similarity of circumstance. When we
survey their ideals of public service the likeness is even
more apparent. They had a like gift of common sense and
a like gift of expressing it. Here are a few samples of
Kellogg's art of phrasing:

GREAT MEN OF MY TIME 69

Individual extravagance is a folly; national extrava-
gance is a crime.

It is the sacred duty of this republic to safeguard
every American life and every American dollar.

There is no such thing as a one-sided neutrality.

There is no representative government unless the
people are fairly and honestly represented.

Hold the Philippines until they can hold themselves.

Nourish but never nurse agriculture.

6. THE FICKLE GODDESS

ARTHUR CHANDLER came often to my fireside. He was
a Yale man in the class of "Bill" Taft, as he was wont to
call him, and was on the staff of Harper and Brothers.
His ideals were mostly in accord with my own. We were
fond of each other. He was a man of unusual gifts. The
sciences were changing the world and he kept pace, with
understanding and a vision that saw far ahead. Edison was
his warm friend.

In the firelight one evening he told this pretty tale
of his first adventure in Wall Street:

A friend in the railroad business told me that On-
tario and Western was going up. He proposed that we
get aboard and take a ride to the City of Good Fortune.
I had a few hundred dollars and could borrow a little more.
Between us we raised a thousand dollars. I took it to my
banker. I put our plan before him. The stock was then
selling at 18. It had lately risen 8 points. He thought it
an unfavorable time to buy. I insisted that I had good in-
formation. I was eager for the jump. The fickle dame
was beckoning to me. The banker smiled. He was a man
I had known in college.

"How much money do you want to risk on this gam-
ble? 5 ' he asked.

"A thousand dollars," was my answer. "It's all I can

raise."

"Well, I could buy a hundred shares for you and
carry the stock as far as your money goes. If it breaks

70

THE FICKLE GODDESS 71

below 8, you would be sold out. I advise you to let it
alone."

He couldn't shoo me away. I clung to my purpose.

"All right," he said, "111 buy a hundred shares on
your account. You'll get some useful knowledge anyhow.
There's room in every boy's head for a lot of that."

I gave him my money, signed an order in blank,
and went away in a profuse perspiration, I was excited.
My partner had said that the stock would go to 40. I
began to consider what I would do with my profits. Three
times that day I went to a ticker and watched the tape.
The stock was going off. I saw 17 recorded, then 16%,
1 6 l /z, 1 6. It closed at 15%. My enthusiasm began to ebb.
Gosh! I could never hope to make money as fast as we
were losing it. Next day all stocks were tumbling. On-
tario and Western seemed to be leading the procession. It
was busy devouring my substance. It never stopped to
rest. It closed at 13%. I was mad. I had been a fool. I de-
served what I was getting. I thought of going to see the
banker. I didn't. I couldn't bear to face him. I couldn't
and wouldn't put up another dollar. I would just stand
still and take my medicine. When the time came to do it
they could sell me put and be damned.

In the next two days the stock rushed on in its down-
ward course. It seemed to know just where it was bound
for. It touched 7%. Yes, that was going some. The stock
halted to get its breath and faced about and began to run
the other way. Having got rid of us, it was happy as
happy as a dog after an application of flea soap. I saw the
ticker no more but every day I looked for O.W. in the
newspapers. I saw the stock climb steadily to 28. What a
lot of cutthroats they were in Wall Street. I didn't won-
der that they could live in palaces. I felt a little like kill-
ing somebody. I was ripe for socialism or even anarchy.

/2 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I hadn't dared to confess my folly to my wife, who would
have now to be content with a skimpy Christmas. I would
have to get along without a new winter overcoat.

One day, a little later, I went into the Vienna Res-
taurant at Broadway and Tenth Street for luncheon. Near
me sat my friend the banker. The sight of him made me
feel sick. He saw me and great Scott! he was coming
to my table. Depressed, humble, and red with embarrass-
ment I arose and took his extended hand. He smiled, say-
ing:

"Congratulations, my boy! There's nothing like good
judgment/'

Was he rubbing it in?

"Cheer up," he went on. "You have done very well.
Did you get my letter?"

"No."

"Well, you will get it this evening. We bought the
stock at 8 and it went off yesterday at 28."

I was breathing fast.

"You bought it at 8!"

"Yes. I put no price on your order to buy. I saw that
your judgment was not with you, so I thought Fd lend
you mine. I saw a specialist in your favorite stock, after
you left my office, who told me that a shakeout was over-
due. So I waited. When the hurricane had passed I exe-
cuted your order. You have learned something that is
worth more than the $2,000 you have made. Don't be
playing tips. Soon or late they'll break you."

Say, what a feeling of benevolence came over me!
I was a changed man.

7. HOT MINUTES

AT any time in life the next minute may be the biggest
one you have known. It may even have the bigness of a
year. Often it will give you a memory that is no unim-
portant piece of property.

Often this minute stuff has been flung into my life
with remarkable results. I remember a day, when I was
one of the editors of the New York World, a telegram
halted my task. It was from an editor who had read the
opening chapters of a novel begun long before and never
finished. He offered me a liberal advance on royalties if
I would immediately go to work on it. That minute
changed the plan of my life and multiplied my income
rather generously.

I remember a minute when I was sitting in a den-
tist's chair. The dentist spoke of a girl who was ruining
his neighborhood with her extravagance. All the other
girls were trying to keep up with her. He told of its effect
on his own family. In a flash I got the idea for one of my
most popular books Keeping Up With Lizzie. I shall
now recall a few minutes which have given me lasting
amusement.

When I began to write books for a living I was
greeted with an overwhelming rush of popularity. I began
to have a fairly good opinion of myself until I set out for
Boston one day. I observed that a number of people in the
parlor car were reading my book. My seat was next to
that of a man who was, I thought, a commercial traveler.
He was reading the book. We greeted each other as I sat

73

74 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

down. I opened my newspaper and began to read. In a
moment he turned to me and said:

"I think this is a bum book. Have you read it?"

This was like a slap in the face. Still, I did not lose
my composure.

I looked at the book and answered: "Oh, yes. It took
me a year to get through it."

Here was a hot minute in which I escaped telling him
that I was the author of the book. I felt better when I
learned that he was James J. Corbett, the pugilist.

However popular a book may be, who knows how
many people regret their purchase of it. Certainly the
author is not likely to know. An altogether special privi-
lege had come to me.

I have had many curious compliments. Old ladies
have often told me of keeping certain of my books at
their bedsides and of going to sleep reading them every
night. I got the notion that my books should be adver-
tised as a remedy for insomnia. Then Don Seitz informed
me that Dr. Hosmer had been reading Keeping Up With
Lizzie to Mr. Joseph Pulitzer before he got the seizure
that carried him away. This was a doubtful compliment
for Lizzie.

I remember a midwinter night when I was to lecture
in an old town on Cape Cod. I was delayed in getting to
the lecture hall. The audience was impatient. The chair-
man, sitting on the platform, greeted me as if I were a
long-lost brother, and turning to the audience said: "I am
going to introduce to you a man whose name is a house-
hold word." He continued his eulogy. Suddenly it was
evident that the household word had escaped his memory.
He was temporizing and raking his mind for it. A look
of relief came over his face. I saw that he had it. Stepping
forward, his effort ended with the words: "Ladies and

HOT MINUTES 75

gentlemen, I have the honor to present to you Mr. Eben
Holden, the author of Irving Bacheller."

The audience greeted the words with a roar of
laughter. That curious accident had made a hit a kind
of home run. It was up to me. In a fix like that one has
to think quickly. The best I could do was this: "That is
the meanest thing ever said about Eben Holden. If he
were here I think he would answer: *A man can't help
makin* a mistake now and then. 5 "

On the platform one has to do unexpected things.

I remember another midwinter night when I had
spoken in a city of 25,000 people in North Dakota. I
learned at the hotel that to make my next engagement I
would have to take a train at 3:20 A.M. The hotel man
said that he would have the porter call me in good time
and carry my bag to the all-night cafeteria, near the sta-
tion, where I could get some breakfast. The porter called
me. I dressed hurriedly and went with him over icy pave-
ments in a bitter wind to the cafeteria. The only person
there was a young woman, her arms bare to the elbows,
sitting behind the counter and leaning forward over a
magazine. Engrossed by some snappy tale, she did not
look up as I advanced and sat down at the counter and
asked:

"Would you mind giving me a little food? Fm in a
hurry."

She looked up lazily and said pleasantly: "Don't get
in a sweat, honey."

She shoved her book aside with a sigh and was on her
feet. She touched a button and gave us more light.

"If there's any place in this town where a man can
get in a sweat, I'd like to find it/' I said.

She smiled without answering. I gave my order and
began to look about me. It \^as the winter after Mr.

j6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Hughes, to my deep regret, had been defeated for the
presidency. Leaning against the copper coffee tank was a
placard which announced: "Coffee hot as Hughes/*

There were many placards in the room. On the wall
behind the counter were three others which interested me:

Lobsters not on this side of the counter.
If you find any fault here keep it. It's yours.
Only part of a ham with each sandwich.

Above the pan of hard-boiled eggs was a card on a
split stick which held the two words: "Auf wiedersehen."

There was still humor in the West. This kind of
travel was hard work, but it was worth while.

Long before that time I was in a squad of horsemen
riding from Yellowstone Park to Jackson's Hole. As was
the custom, we stopped at a military post to register. The
sergeant at the desk knew my name and said that he had
read a number of my books. He told of reading D'ri and I
when he was in camp on the Snake River with a number
of jolly fellows who resented his attention to the book.

"I had left it leaning against a tree in whose shade I
had been reading, to get a drink of water," he said. "While
I was gone one of the boys took a shot at the book with
his revolver. He ruined it. The bullet lodged in the leaves
about halfway through the book."

A man, pretending to be a friend of mine, said:
"Well, at last it's proved that it takes more than the
energy of a bullet to get through one of Bacheller's
books."

The roars of laughter that followed can be imagined.
It was a hot minute for me. After the waves had passed,
I said: "Boys, in this country carry one of my books in
every pocket and two or three under your vests. You'll
be a lot safer."

HOTMINUTES 77

It was a lame return, but I had got a shot that would
have disabled anyone.

Job Hedges was often at my house. One evening he
told me of a hot minute in his life.

"It hit me like a sledge hammer/* Job began. "It
ruined the best speech I ever made and there were five
thousand voters in the crowd and I was running for gov-
ernor. Rows of the leading citizens sat behind me as I
spoke. I got along famously with the crowd. I had reached
the climax and was feeding out the uplift. It looked like
a great killing. Suddenly something went wrong. The
crowd was moving nervously. No one was paying any at-
tention to me; there was a look of alarm on each of the
five thousand faces that I was appealing to. My speech fell
in ruins. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. My
heart sank. What was the trouble? I turned and saw that
a distinguished citizen, who sat in the first row behind
me, was throwing a fit. One fit can ruin a campaign. If
someone had thrown a fit near him while Demosthenes
was delivering his T>e Corona/ I wonder if we should ever
have heard of it."

I remember a hot minute in the sagebrush plains
when Hepburn and I were staging from Kemmerer to
Cora where our hunting outfit was waiting for us. At a
lonely ranch entrance a woman got aboard. She took a
box of cigars from her bag, lit one, and passed the box.
She was genial, generous, and communicative. We soon
knew that her husband had been killed in a fight, that she
had carried on the ranch and brought up the children.

The next morning she sat between Hepburn and me
on the front seat. At the extreme right was the reticent,
solemn-faced, undersized man who drove. His name was
Romeo. It had rained some in the night and in crossing a
bit of low ground the front wheels sank so deep that the

78 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

horses were not able to move us. Romeo lashed and
shouted with no success.

"Hell and bumblebees!" the woman exclaimed. "Ain't
thar no man here who can swear?"

Romeo increased the scope of his vocabulary. The
woman reached in front of me and grabbed the reins as
she said: "Oh, Romeo! Romeo! If ye was talkin 3 to me I'd
think ye was makin* love to me. Give me that whip/ 5

She stood up. In a loud voice and with compound
adjectives she reminded the horses of disagreeable facts in
their family histories. As she cracked the whip she gave a
yell that could have been heard a mile away. We went on
and in a moment we could see a herd of antelope scam-
pering over a hill far ahead of us.

She passed the reins to Romeo and sat down and
calmly said: "Boy, what ye need in a case o* that kind is
excitement a mile wide. Ye need a few mouthfuls o* real
language an' a stout pair o* lungs."

I was on the World when Fitzsimmons fought Cor-
bett in Carson City. The interest in this event was nation-
wide. The editorial council decided to engage the great
John L. Sullivan, who had long since retired from the ring,
to go to Carson City with the World reporters and give
them help in writing the story of the fight. Mr. Eakins,
the city editor, went on with the party. When he returned
someone asked him how John had behaved.

He answered: "After the fashion of a Roman em-
peror wearied with adulation but willing to bear it for
the people's sake."

During the fight Mrs. Fitzsimmons sat behind her
husband's corner shouting encouraging remarks not all
of them quite fit for print. They expressed uncompli-
mentary opinions of Mr. Corbett and suggested the treat-

HOT MINUTES 79

ment lie should receive. John was deeply interested in her
words and manner. After Corbett had been knocked out
by that solar plexus shot John went with the World re-
porters to their room. He was in a philosophic mood and
in a minute he said a memorable thing about the power
of woman.

"Boys, it was that woman that licked Corbett," he
said. "When a man's wife is lookin* on he's twice as dan-
gerous. Now ye take that fight o* mine with Charley
Mitchell in France. I had him licked. Suddenly his wife
yelled: 'Charley, remember yer wife an' little ones. 5 What
happens? He lands a stiff punch an* widin a minute he
spikes me in de leg."

Now here was something worth reporting. A famous
editorial was written on "The Power of Woman."

8. THE GREAT SECRET
In the True Story of a Long Married Life

AFTER the passing of my wife, with whom I had lived
happily for more than forty years, I wrote this for my
adopted son who came to us when he was about two
years old:

One thing I would not fail to leave you. It is a secret
if I may call it that of my happy and contented life,
a part of which you have shared. So, while the truth of
the matter is clearly in my mind, I sit down to commit
to you a little history of my loves, the first of which was
my love of men, many kinds of men, which was born
in me.

There is no art so useful as that of making friends
and keeping them. Yet this gentle art will be of slight
service to anyone unless it begins at home. There are many
people who have not learned how to win and keep the
friendship of a wife or a husband. They are careful to
win and keep the friendship of those who command the
way to success, but they are careless of him or her whose
friendship is the thing most important to them. It com-
mands the way to real happiness.

The love between a man and a woman is like a plant.
It must grow or die. It cannot stand still. One's love either
grows wider and deeper or it grows less. The first passion
is not the real thing, it is only a phase of it, a kind of
preparation. That will pass. It should be the beginning of

80

THE GREAT SECRET 8l

that affection which endures and is patient. If it is to grow
it must have the bread of friendship and mutual sacrifice
to feed upon. Love is capable of miracles, but there is one
miracle which it cannot perform: It cannot fast and grow
strong. It is like every other thing that has life. It must
be fed. When you get a wife, don't expect the ravens to
feed her love for you.

I used to struggle anxiously for success in my busi-
ness and later in my craft. It came slowly. I find now in
its delay a great kindness. I have seen many happenings
to many people in my time, and have come to think that
it is a misfortune for the young to achieve riches. The
danger of disaster is too great. The strength of the young
is for struggle. Therein is their great chance for real
achievement and lasting happiness. What a rich and de-
lightful comradeship I enjoyed in those years of hard
work!

Once I saw a memorable meeting between two old
comrades of the Civil "War. They embraced each other as
tears ran down their cheeks.

"My God, sir!" one of them exclaimed in explanation
of his tears. "I love that man. He and I have fought and
bled together and shared the same piece of hardtack."

It is the smooth and flowery path of ease that is dan-
gerous. Shared troubles and hardships are the meat and
bread of real affection.

If my wife had a good husband it was because she
made me that by loving, faithful devotion. I know that
I had a good wife. We got from each other the things
we sowed.

What a harvest came to us! I had not dreamed that
in all the fields of this world I could hope to see the like
of it. Slowly an abiding conviction had reached us that

82 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

one had not to die to go to Paradise. We knew that we
were in the midst of it.

Then suddenly she was called to another part of that
wonderful country. I was alone, but my faith was strong
for the trial.

We were very human. The result might have been
different so vastly different.

Now a word to you as to the seed of our harvest. It
is mostly in the words "honor" and "judgment/ 5 Most
men and women could be just as happily married as we,
if they could put into the enterprise the same sense and
honor that are needed in running a successful peanut
stand. You could not succeed with inferior goods and
dishonest measurements. You know the first step in mak-
ing a hare pie is to catch your hare. The first step toward
making a happy marriage is a decent boy and a decent
girl. The world is full of them. They are not hard to find.
Nobody of ordinary common sense can long be fooled in
choosing a mate. It's as easy to distinguish between a good
and a bad person as it is to tell a straight from a crooked
stick. The first important function of the human intel-
lect is to help one in choosing his mate and his way. If
one is foolish enough to marry without consulting his in-
tellect as well as his heart, he is almost sure to be unhappy.

Once the well-chosen two are married the rest is
mostly up to the man. He is the leader, the captain, the
pathfinder. Much depends upon his honor and courage
and good faith. At the altar he has taken upon himself the
most solemn and binding obligation known to this world
of ours. Before God and man he has promised to be true
to this woman of his choice, and leaving all others to
cleave to her. Does he mean it? Is he honest in this great
undertaking as honest as he would be with a business
partner? Will he treat his wife with as much good faith

THE GREAT SECRET 83

as he gives to Smith and Jones, who are associated with
him in the shop? Are the laws of God as sacred to him
as the bylaws of his corporation? If so, there is not one
chance in a hundred that his marriage will be unhappy,
for the wife will be likely to follow in his footsteps which-
ever way they lead. It is natural that it should be so.

We should all understand that a man who is a traitor
to his home, who breaks the heart and spirit of his wife
and brings discredit upon his children, is guilty of the
grossest breach of honor of which a man is capable. I
would sooner forgive him who defaults in the counting
room. There may be some faint flavor of righteousness in
his motive, and he is always hoping to restore the sum he
steals. In any event he is not seriously undermining the
foundations of civilized life.

So many men try to stand on both sides of the fence
in this matter to be openly straight and secretly crooked.
How sure they are to wreck their homes and build up a
growing distrust of themselves I For here is a great truth.
No man ever fooled his wife or his community for long
as to the exact condition of his character. It will come
out, somehow, in whispers that travel like the winds of
heaven. You might as well try to keep the air out of your
house. Then, too, the human eye has a power which is
little comprehended of seeing the truth. The eyes and ears
of the world are against the transgressor and they are
many.

The happy home must be founded upon honor and
built of sound timbers if it is to stand against the winds
and floods.

Now I do not need to tell you that I am no angel.
I have been no anemic halfman. I know what temptation
means. Men and women who stand against it will need all
the strength they have, and perhaps even a little more.

84 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

What do I mean by "a little more"? Well, think that out
for yourself.

You will never forget the atmosphere which your
mother created in the home which has been yours and
mine. Simple as it was, the sacred light of beauty was
there. It was loved and sought by many friends. That
home had a voice, not of human lips, which spoke to one
who entered it and seemed to say: "Here are peace and
rest and comfort and perhaps even a greater treasure."

Whatever you have seen and felt in your home is the
natural expression of happiness. Slovenliness and unclean-
ness are the voices of failure and discontent. Have you not
observed that a happy spirit growing sweeter and cleaner,
year by year, will clothe the body that holds it with a kind
of beauty? The homely face of Abraham Lincoln became
beautiful as his spirit developed and his ungainly physique
assumed a majesty all its own. What is true of people is
true of houses. A home will soon be beautiful, if its spirit
is developing in the right direction; or unattractive, if its
spirit is going wrong. It cannot help being so. That spirit
will inevitably find the art of expressing itself in dress,
in color, in furnishings, in music, and in its associates.

You may wish to know what it is that makes for the
right spirit in one's home. Broadly speaking, it is the
proper respect for beauty in nature, art, and personality,
for good books, good pictures, good music, good people,
good talk. It is the love of noble things and especially of
friendship. The art of being a true friend is not well un-
derstood. There is an old saying that one who tastes your
salt is sacred. Give him your best and protect him even
from himself.

You will have observed that your mother and I had
learned the gentle art of keeping peace. In the forty years
of our wedded life a comradeship had grown up between

THE GREAT SECRET 8j

us which was the subject of much comment. What a help
and joy it was to me!

I remember a time when we were first married and
we went to visit my old mother. We were sitting together
in the twilight of a summer day. I recall that my young
wife had said something which displeased me, and I made
a thoughtless and impatient remark. We were as sensitive
as a pair of thoroughbred colts and were both hurt by
what had been said. Then, as the light grew dim, my old
mother talked to us of the gentle art of keeping step, of
bearing and forbearing, and of the danger in hasty words.
Of the things she said this I remember: "Every day, at
least once, I want you to think of this: What can I do
this day to show her that I really love her? What can I
do to make him love me more? If you are ever angry with
each other, don't speak, I beg of you, until the anger has
passed."

It was a great lesson to us. In a sense we were re-
married that night. I would not have you think that our
relations became suddenly ideal, but from that day we
made rapid progress in the art of self -adjustment.

We made our home as attractive as our means would
let us. Everyone should do that, for his home is his gate
to Paradise. If extravagance can ever be justified, it is in
making a home. My wife had good taste, and I was fond
of books. I bought a wagonload of them at a shop in New
York, and we sat up half the night waiting for them to
come. We had fitted up a study opening off the back
parlor and built a bookcase into its long walls. The books
brought into our home a new atmosphere and source of
inspiration. The best company began to feel at home
there.

My life was a very active one. Often I was getting
home late to a dinner which had been carefully planned

86 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

and prepared for me. It was likely to be a spoiled dinner.
Then there came a day illumined and memorable with
revelation. Hard times had come to us. Our goods were
mostly in storage. We were living in a little flat in Tarry-
town. I was working on a novel. My wife had gone to
New York for the day. It was a delightful summer day.
I sat at my task until one o'clock and got a bite to eat.
I didn't know quite what to do with myself then. Oh, the
loneliness of that little flat! I read awhile. I sat and lis-
tened to the chirping of crickets and the drowsing of
katydids. I worried. Suppose some evil thing should befall
her in the big city?

I went to her bureau to look for a pair of nail scis-
sors. What a treasure box of dainty and beautiful things
was in that upper drawer! In what an orderly manner
they had been laid away! Odors like the breath of dewy
meadows came out to me. I looked in a box covered with
red silk and embroidery. It held a package of letters bound
together with the daintiest pink ribbon. I took it out of
the box a bundle of my old love letters so carefully
stored away! Why should she treasure them? I sat down
and read them over. How boyish, how sophomoric, how
crude, they were! how utterly artless! How much better
I could say it now. Yet she loved those silly letters. They
were dear to her or she would not have put them away
so carefully, so daintily. I returned the letters to their
resting place and lay down upon the cushioned sofa. Oh,
what a lonely place it was! I began to think of the past.

Eighteen years had gone by since that evening when
we had sat together at the feet of my old mother, in the
twilight, and listened to her wise counsel. They had been
hard years full of anxious toil and small accomplishment.
I could see that, as a husband, I had been more or less of
a failure. She had seen little of me save when I had re-

THE GREAT SECRET 87

turned to her, often at midnight, worn out by the bur-
dens of the day. How many lonely hours, like these I was
now spending, had been hers! True, I had tried to follow
the good advice of my mother. I had brought my wife
gifts, many gifts, bought in distant cities when in sheer
loneliness my thoughts had turned homeward. I had gone
to the limit in that matter, and yet I had given her not
half enough of myself.

An idea came to me. She would be returning on the
6:10 train. She would be hungry and tired. I would have
a dinner, fit for a queen, ready for her when she arrived!
There would be fresh-cut roses on the table. I would broil
a choice beefsteak basted with strips of bacon. I would
have mushrooms and new asparagus and fresh tomatoes
and lettuce and strawberries just out of the garden, and
a pint bottle of cream, and coffee f or she loved my way
of making coffee. I went out for a walk, and then I did
my shopping with the greatest care. The beefsteak was
cut from the loin of a young steer and was two inches
thick. I returned a little before five with my arms full
of roses and ferns and smilax. My goods were lying at the
door. I got the fire going and set and decorated the table
as if it were to hold a wedding feast. I made the salad and
dressed the mushrooms and began my cooking. What fun
I had anticipating her surprise and pleasure. The steak
was ready, beautifully browned, under its melting crown
of golden butter.

Put on as much butter as you think you need and
then double the quantity. That was my rule in serving a
steak. How delicious it looked, and its aroma was perfect!
The mushrooms were ready. The strawberries were heaped
in saucers of ancestral china and set upon graceful mats
of smilax. The coffee was in the pot. The asparagus was
steaming on a gold-rimmed platter. It was 6:20. She

88 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

would be coming in a minute or two. I went and looked
out the window to see if she was near. Five minutes passed.
I began to be anxious. What could have happened to her?
I drew a chair to the windowside and sat watching; a
quarter of an hour and still no sign of her.

"Good heaven!" I said to myself. "Isn't that like a
woman? A man works himself tired to please her and
she"

I went to the stove. The steak was getting dry. The
mushrooms had shriveled. The asparagus had a dejected
look. I was irritated. The clock struck seven. I didn't care
what happened now. My exertions had wearied me and I
threw myself on the sofa to rest. Gosh! What a rankling,
bitter sense of baffled effort filled my soul!

At a quarter after seven the bell rang. It was grow-
ing dusk. I arose and opened the door. There stood my
adccable wife with a sweet smile.

"Hello, dear!" she exclaimed as we kissed each other.
"How are you?"

"About all in!" I answered. "What in the world kept
you so late?"

"Met an old friend and we sat down to talk in the
station. Why, what is the matter? You look so cross."

"Anybody would be cross who has been treated as I
have. Just look into the dining room," I said.

She followed me with exclamations of delight
through the dining room and into the little kitchen.
"Look at the dried beefsteak," I went on sadly. "Look at
the mushrooms that are like India rubber. Look at the
asparagus that has turned cold and stale. Look at your
spoiled husband. If there were a man's page in the paper,
I would write a letter to it on the subject of neglected
husbands who spend their days in loneliness and their

THE GREAT SECRET 89

strength in preparing dinners doomed to lie on a cooling
stove until they are ruined/'

"We fell into each other's arms and laughed, and then
we put the food on the table and sat down and had a
wonderful hour together. She declared it was the finest
dinner she had ever eaten in spite of its staleness. I well,
I was a wiser man after that, for I had tasted the bitter
cup which is so often touching the lips of women.

I laid aside my novel to join the editorial staff of a
great morning newspaper. We were living in New York.
My wife fell ill. Her mother and a well-known physician
were attending her. I returned to the apartment from my
task one morning at two o'clock. A serious change had
come over the patient. I could see it in her face. I went
out and found one of the best physicians in the city and
brought him to the bedside. It was none too soon. My
wife was being mistreated. Her trouble was peritonitis,
her condition serious. The doctor told us what to do.
Through that night and until nine in the morning I was
dipping and wringing hot cloths. It was that timely help
which carried her over the danger point.

How sweet the sound of lover *s tongues by night!

When the eager youth seizes

The white wonder of dear Juliet's hand

And steals immortal blessing from her lips!

True, but never so sweet are they as in the night of
pain >and utter discouragement. Then, indeed, you get the
full sweetness of the lover's tongue and a blessing from
tender lips truly immortal.

I know, for I had had my turn of sickness and suf-
fering and had learned what a good wife can do to keep
a man in courage when it is growing faint. Together we
had suffered failure, the pinch of hard times, the anxieties

90 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

of sickness, the peril of great loss. A man and wife who
have not stood, side by side, through such troubles, may
perhaps be fortunate, but they have missed the priceless
thing which, if borne with good courage, makes a man
and woman one and inseparable and gives them a peace
and power beyond all measurement. We had stood the
final trials of the thing called "love" and had entered
upon a new era in our wedded life.

Success came to us swiftly, unexpectedly. It enjoyed
our company as we enjoyed it. We were turning forty.
The spirit of youth was still in us. Is it any wonder that
when a degree of wealth had come to me I threw it at her
feet and said: < It is as much yours as mine. I want you
to go to the bank with me and leave your signature.
Henceforward your check shall be honored, like my own,
whenever it is presented." Always, after that, she had no
need of asking me for any treasure which she desired.

She was wont to claim that an allowance would have
suited her better, as her privilege had made her extremely
careful. That was strictly true. Why should a man wait
until he dies to trust his wife implicitly?

So now you know how simple is the secret of our
happy life. "We had no more love for each other than have
most boys and girls who marry. But we managed to keep
and increase our love instead of killing it, and mainly by
being honest with each other. For all that I claim no
credit. I would not have told you all these things save
that you and others have made me believe that it ought
to be told. If a time has really come when honor between
men and women is in need of my humble recommenda-
tion, I give it freely.

I am lonely but not cast down. I know her spirit. It
is still the same spirit that walked beside me. If I were to
rest dejected in the shadow of my loneliness, I know what

THE GREAT SECRET 91

this beloved Martha would be saying. She would be out
of patience with me. So I go on, as of old, seeking, day
by day, the things we loved together; companionship and
beauty and a full use of the strength of mind and body.

It is, I think, proper that you should know that after
we had lived together nearly thirty-five years, she wrote
to me, on the 2$th of July, 1917, a letter which I have
greatly prized. In that letter she wrote I was then in
Europe: "You have been to me one of the dearest and best
of husbands and I want you to know that you have made
one creature supremely happy."

It was a long letter filled with like words and, really,
while this world has been kind to me it has given me no
reward that I value so highly.

That is the letter I wrote in 1924. In time I did what,
I am sure, my wife would have wished me to do. I mar-
ried her intimate friend, who has been, for eleven years,
a loving and delightful comrade.

PART II

THINGS THAT TURNED ME TO SUCCESSFUL
AUTHORSHIP

9. NEW THINGS IN THE DRIFT

WE all have a length of beach on a mysterious sea. In-
teresting and often amazing things come drifting In,
driven by winds and tides. I have read how Coleridge
picked up the driftwood that entered into that wonderful
structure of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Cole-
ridge had the help of a long beach, a rare sense of values,
and winds straight from lands blessed with treasure.

We common folk may not look for like riches to be
coming in with the winds of chance. Some of us have no
eye for high values. It is all rubbish.

Many of us often find an interesting heap of things
that have drifted in off the invisible sea. Soon we find that
some of it has a value surprising to us.

When I found myself it was, I admit, a rather small
discovery. Still, it threw some light on my road to hap-
piness. I had been in business a number of years with no
special talent for it. I had succeeded fairly well, through
hard work, traveling back and forth across the continent,
climbing ratty old stairways to editorial rooms day and
night to sell the immortal tales of Kipling, Doyle, Con-
rad, Crane, Weyman, Hope, Jacobs, and Miss Wilkins for
simultaneous publication in newspaper syndicates. Often
my errands called me to France and England. Mine was a
new idea, and in those days energy, hope, faith, and per-
suasion were needed at both ends of the road the writer
being at one end, the editor at the other. I was not quite
happy, for I was fond of my wife and my home.

Now and then I got the notion that I could write.

95

96 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I wrote a short tale under an assumed name. I sent it to
the old American Magazine with two others, by writers
fairly well known. To my surprise they accepted my story
and returned the others. Still I was not unduly set up.
I had no high opinion of that story.

I had begun to think of a character I had known in
my youth who had got a wound in the Civil War that
deprived him of his good sense. He was a harmless, half-
witted, hard-working hired man. I got the idea for a bal-
lad and satisfied myself that it was psychologically sound.
I worked on it evenings and Sundays. Soon it got going
and in a few weeks it was finished, although not quite in
its final form.

I sent it to Bliss Carman, then literary editor of the
Independent. Not twenty-four hours had passed when
Mr. Carman accepted it with the words "This thing will
travel." It did. It even crossed the seas and traveled
throughout the English-speaking world. The public read-
ers took it up and forty-six years ago it was heard in
many theaters and churches.

Lately the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Company pro-
duced it on the screen with Chic Sale in the role of
storyteller. Since then at least a thousand letters have
come to me asking for copies of the ballad. If I had tried
to comply with these requests I should have been busy
for months.

So I present here the thing that gave me some slight
standing as a literary man, for a distinguished professor
of literature wrote that its tragic situation is unequaled
in any story of war with which he was familiar. Anyhow,
it was the best thing that had yet drifted to my beach.

NEW THINGS IN THE DRIFT 97

WHISPERIN* BILL

So yer runnin' fer Congress, mister. Le* me tell ye 'bout my

son

Might make you fellers carefuller down there in Washington
He clings to his rifle an* uniform folks call him Whisperin'

Bill;
An 5 I tell ye the war ain't over yit up here on Bowman's Hill.

I 'member when the war broke out, our Bill was past sixteen
An' I'll say about as likely a lad as ever this world has seen.
"With gloomy news o' battles lost, the speeches an' all the noise
I guess every farm in the neighborhood lost a part of its crop
o' boys.

'Twas harvest time when Bill left hum; every stalk in the field

o' rye

Stood up tip toe to see him off an' wave him a long good-bye;
His sweetheart was here with some other gals the sassy little

miss!
An' purtendin' she wanted to whisper'n his ear she give him

a rousin' kiss.

His mother she toP him solemn when she knowed he was goin*

away,

'At God'd take care o' him, mebbe, if he didn't fergit to pray;
I couldn't control my feelin's but I tried with all my might
An' his mother an* me stood a lookin* till Bill was out o* sight,

O his comrades has often said to me that Bill never flinched
a bit

When every second a gap in the ranks toP where a shell had hit.

They went out for the dead and wounded men one quiet moon-
less night

An' found Bill's body helpless, sir, but his mind was still in the
fight.

His fingers was clutched in the dewy grass. Oh, no, sir, he

wasn't dead
But he lay a-whisperin* crazy-like, with a rifle ball in his head.

98 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

The bullet was a pressin' on his brain since then it 'pears to me
The rush an* roar o' the battle field is all he can hear an 5 see.

We was that anxious to see him we'd set up an' talk o* nights
Till the break o } day had dimmed the stars an' put out the

northern lights.
We waited an* watched a month or more an' the summer had

nearly passed
When a letter come one day that said they'd started for hum

at last.

Ill never fergit the day Bill come. 'Twas harvest time again,
The wind that teched the yeller field was full o* the scent o*

the grain.
An' the dooryard was full o* the neighbors who had come to

share our joy
An* all of us sent up a mighty cheer at the sight o' that soldier

boy.

Then all of a sudden somebody said: "My God! Don't the boy

know his mother?"
An* Bill stood a-whisperin', fearful-like, an* starin' from one to

another.
tc Don*t be afraid, Bill," says he to himself as he stood in his coat

o' blue,
"God'll take care o* you, Bill, God'll take care o* you."

God a'niighty! he's pintin* his gun. Seems so he kind o' hears
The awful roar o' the battle field a soundin' in his ears.
Seems so the ghosts o* that bloody day was yellin* in his brain
An* his feet they kind o' picked their way as if he saw the slain.

I grabbed his hand an* says I to Bill: "Don't ye 'member me?
"I'm yer father don't ye know me? How skeery ye seem to be!"
But I couldn't stop the battle, sir. It goes on day an* night
He'll tire an* sleep an' then wake up in that everlastin* fight.

He's never knowed us since he come ner his sweetheart an* never

will
Father an* mother an* sweetheart is all the same to Bill.

NEW THINGS IN THE DRIFT 99

An 3 often we set up with the boy sometimes the hull night

through
An' we smooth his head an* say: "Yes, Bill. Hell surely take

care o' you/'

Ye can stop a war in a minute but when can ye stop the groans?
Ye've sapped our blood an' bruk our hearts an' tore away our

bones.

Ye've filled our souls with hellish hate that goes from sire to son
So ye best be kind o' careful down there in Washington.

Another piece of driftwood brought in by the tide
of memory gives a little of the color of my boyhood life
on the farm. The faithful dog was one of my best friends.
How often I have warmed my bare feet on a spot where
some cow had lain after Shep had roused the big herd and
begun to gather it.

Since it was dramatized by Chic Sale and his won-
derful dog, on the screen, I have had many requests for its
text and so it, too, becomes a part of these memories.

or SHEP

Ol* crotchetty Shep!

Can't hardly step

Yer cup is purty nigh filled.

OF age, gee whiz!

An 5 rheumatiz!

An' they say ye got to be killed.

We'll go to some spot

In the pastur* lot.

Here Shep come along with me.

Way back in the time

Ye was in yer prime

How supple ye used to be.

100 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

As arrers go

Fm a hickory bow

I 'member how ye'd bound

Down the long cow run.

Toward the risin' sun,

An' up to the mullen ground.

"When the dew drops glowed

Like di'monds sowed

All over the fields complete.

Where a cow had laid

In some frosty glade

I'd stan' an' warm my feet.

Look Shep. Do ye see

That ol 3 Thorn tree

At the top o' this rocky knool?

'Member how we laid

Half a day in its shade

Watchin' a woodchuck hole?

I'd run away

Fm school that day

An' come home an' told a yarn

An' when pa took me

To the blue beech tree

You run an* hid under the barn.

It raised my wool
When the big, red bull
Took after me one day
I run like a deer
An' you grabbed his ear
An' drove him a mile away.

Ton my soul!

There's the swimmin 5 hole.

I 'member how you an* I

NEW THINGS IN THE DRIFT IOI

By that alder clump
Would run an* jump
Down into the water sky

Kerwallop! An 3 then

I 'member when

I was drowndin' an' 'gun to shout

You jumped in

An* swum like sin

An* by grayy! Ye pulled me out.

The case is in
By gosh! You win.
Can't do it. No siree!
In yer hull life way
There was never a day
Ye wouldn't a died fer me.

Yer true an' yer brave

Yer the world's best slave.

It's too much like killin' a man.

In my hull dinged race

There's no honester face

So live as long as ye can.

10. THE SOUNDING STRINGS

As to my literary talent I was not easily convinced. I was
still the doubting editor. True, I could write verse that
traveled and I dreamed of doing the kind of thing for my
countryside that Riley had done for the rural Middle
West. I am sure that I could have won a degree of suc-
cess In that work. The material was rich and abundant.
It had yet to be proved that I could write prose of any
real distinction.

After dinner the boys at the Sign of the Lanthorne
amused each other with humorous poems and sketches of
the town that presented rich and suggestive color. Soon
these readings became a fixed feature of our after-dinner
nights. These men were a hard lot to please. They would
ridicule on small provocation, but never praise. It was
understood that silence would be their only sign of ap-
proval. Often it would be broken by whispered words of
enthusiasm.

About once a week I tramped around town looking
for attractive color. One day, seeing the big viol sign
above the door that led to Tubbs's old violin shop on the
Bowery, I climbed a flight of stairs and opened a door,
above which hung a clanging bell, and entered the shop.
The clang of the bell had found a faint echo in many
strings and sound chambers on the counter and along the
walls. Mrs. Tubbs, a kindly woman, came out of a back
room. In a few minutes I had won her confidence and she
told me that Mr. Tubbs had the care of some of the most
valuable violins in the world.

IQ2

THE SOUNDING STRINGS IO3

"There in that case is a Strad worth $20,0005" she
said.

"Tell me, has an instrument like that a voice of its
own which a connoisseur would recognize?" I asked.

"Yes, it has. The voice of no other violin is like it.
The great Cremonas are like human beings. Each one has
its own character and a voice to express it. You know,
there is no other human voice in the world like yours. So
it is with good violins. At the first sound you can tell
one of the right breeding with the voice of a great soul
in it or you can tell a worthless loafer of no account."

She told me of the wonderful voice of a certain Mag-
gini which had long been in the shop. A man had come
again and again to see it. He would look at it and thrum
the strings and go away. It seemed as if he was in love
with it.

"One day he came and I left him with the violin in
his hands to get something in the back room. When I came
out he was gone and the dear old Maggini was gone. "When
Mr. Tubbs came in and I told him he went a lead color."

"When a man "went a lead color" something had hap-
pened to his soul. With that vivid and sufficient descrip-
tion of the effect of the news upon Mr. Tubbs I came
away and began my thinking of the rich color in the old
violin shop. Who wouldn't have found a story in the talk
of the woman and the look of the place? It came along
rather easily. As a bit of color it seemed to grow better as
I worked on it. The little tale was near its final form
when I took it with me to the dinner at the Sign of the
Lanthorne. I was afraid of that tough crowd of literary
gunmen. I was nervous when I began reading but soon I
knew that the boys were with me. I finished in a dead
silence that lasted for half a minute.

I had really done something a little thing, to be

104 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

sure in prose. It was promptly accepted and published
in the Cosmopolitan Magazine one of the best of the
literary media.

In a few months Elbert Hubbard sought the privi-
lege of putting it in two limited, de luxe editions, hand
illumined, one in limp leather at $2, one in morocco bind-
ing at $10. These editions were soon sold and are now out
of print. So I here present the little story that opened a
new vista for me.

THE STORY OF A PASSION

Bibbs's was a gloomy little heaven up one flight and
Bibbs a bald, eccentric god of violins with a beard half as
long as his body and white as snow. His windows over-
looked the Bowery and their dusty panes hastened the
twilight and delayed the dawn, robbing the day of an
hour at each end. The elevated trains shook walls and
windows with their noisy passing but, somehow, there was
silence in the little shop. Or was it but the sign of silence
that one saw on every side? the hushed string, the dark,
whisper-haunted caverns of spruce and maple, the un-
communicative Bibbs? Once it had been a busy place but
the center of wealth and fashion had retreated from it,
year by year, and now it was a mere hospital of old in-
struments. Some of them had voiced the noblest emotions
of the human heart. Thro' one the soul of Ole Bull had
spoken of home, of love, of paradise, of all deep long-
ings. "With what stately rhythms, with what eloquent,
majestic phrasing they had led the minds of men toward
the great mysteries.

Some had been lying here for half a century and time
had poured its floods of lights upon them and dipped them
in the silence and the gloom of night and filtered thro*
their fibers strains of song and sound till they were come

THE SOUNDING STRINGS IOJ

to years of understanding like to those o men and were
getting voices fit for the telling of great things. Men came
to buy them sometimes but of late had found it hard to
deal with Bibbs. Raw toned young violins he sold and
cheaply but not the old ones which had been his hope and
company for years not for all the wealth of Gotham.
His love of them was constant and his price beyond all
reason.

The sale of the Maggini had been a sorry bargain tho*
it brought him twice its value. He had thought that no
man would buy it at a price so high. The money was paid
and the Maggini became the darling of a new owner who
made off with it while Bibbs stood speechless and con-
fused. Then, as the good wife was fond of telling, "he
went a lead color" and to bed.

Now buyers came more rarely. His wife was dead
and Bibbs lived quite alone.

n

It was early twilight in the little shop. Bibbs lighted a
candle, set aside his pots of glue and varnish and stood a
moment thrumming on the solemn old Amati he had
mended. He played a strain of music on its silver string.
It was the Song of Faith from Elijah. A deep amen swept
under the red dome of the bass viol that stood in a corner
and a faint wail of sympathy rang in the sensitive, tim-
bered chambers on the counter and along the walls the
sound of impatient, prisoned voices.

"Yes," said Bibbs, as if speaking to a friend. "But I
say the song should be: O rest in Time for Time is the
Lord and there's time enough to make all things perfect
even men. When you were only seventy years old I sup-
pose the devil was in you as he is in me. Goodness is but

IO6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

harmony and you will be better you red bellied son of
a whittler."

As had been his custom by day for years Bibbs care-
fully inspected the joinings of the Strad. He held his ear
against it and the strings sang at the touch of his beard.

"That voice of yours!" he exclaimed. "I wonder what
it will be a thousand years from now. Wood cannot last
forever nor can flesh and bone. When your voice is near
perfection you will not be strong enough to stand the
strain of the strings and then well, you're a good deal
like a man anyhow/'

To Bibbs, heaven was the destination of good violins.
"To hell with harps/' he was wont to say and hell was,
in his view, the home of fiddlers and their playing was the
doom of the damned. He was wont to say that between
earth and heaven was the great sea of silence and that
noble music started waves that washed its further shore.

Bibbs put the Strad in its case and turned the key.
He stood a moment silently filling his pipe. A melancholy
cello lying near him loosed a string, humming like a love-
sick maiden.

in

Bibbs was about to make all fast and retire to his
room behind the shop when suddenly the door opened,
clanging the bell that hung above it. An old man with
shaven, wrinkled face and long, white hair stood before
him.

"Any old violins?" he asked, advancing toward the
shop-keeper.

"None to sell," Bibbs curtly answered. Those days
a buyer was an enemy.

"I do not wish to buy. I am a connoisseur and I love
to look at them and hear their voices."

Now there were men to whom Bibbs gave some tol-

THE SOUNDING STRINGS IO/

eration and even a degree of confidence men who had
grown old with violins and who loved them as he did.

"Sit down/* said he, pointing to a chair. "I've an
Amati, a Strad and a Guarnerius here. This is the Strad.
It is not mine. I only take care of it. Play?"

"Once but not for years. My fingers have grown old.
I fear that they have lost their magic. These wrinkles are
like strings to bind them."

Bibbs took the Strad from its case. He thrummed it
and then played the first phrases of The Pilgrims' Chorus.
The stranger rose and staggered toward him with hands
extended.

"Let me take it," said he and his lips trembled as
he spoke.

"Stand back, you fool," Bibbs scolded. "You cannot
buy this instrument. It is not for sale I tell you."

"I shall not try to buy it. You can trust it in my
hands a moment. I I have heard a voice that is dear to

me."

Bibbs hesitated, surveying the stranger with suspi-
cious eyes. He bolted the door.

"Be careful. Don't drop it," he said, as with anxious
looks he put it in the stranger's hands.

The old man took the instrument and kissed its back
and looked at it. He spoke the one word, sweetheart, and
the strings fondly answered as he touched them with his
thumb. Then fell that silence we know when words come
to the lips and cannot pass. A moment or more it lasted
and a strange vibration touched the heart of Bibbs. Then
the silvery bell of old St. Andrew's in the Bowery wavered
thro' the hush and broke the spell. The stranger spoke:

"Thirty years ago this Strad was mine. I fell ill and
pledged it for a loan. That was in London. I was a long
time between life and death and when I came to get the

108 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Strad they had sold it for the debt. Listen! I will show
you that it knows me."

He tuned the strings and played and as he played his
fettered fingers were made free. His bow was like a tri-
dent quaking the sea of silence and waves of music started
for its further strands. Far into the night the great winds
of inspired song swept and lashed it Liszt, Chopin,
Beethoven, Bach. They ended with that hurricane of
Paganini known as The Devil's Trill. The player stopped
and mopped his brow.

What a silence was that which now fell upon them!
Bibbs went to a window and flung it open. The old men
stood looking out at stars in the sky. Neither spoke. An
elevated train went crashing by. Bibbs closed the window.
They returned to their chairs.

"Sorry you came here/' said the old violin maker.
"You cannot buy this instrument and now there's no
peace for you."

"Unless you let me live with you and help you in
your work/' the stranger answered. "I have money and
we both love music and you are quite alone."

"But the man who owns the Strad may come and
take it away."

"He may not come for years and let's not borrow
trouble."

So Bibbs made him welcome. The old men lived to-
gether happily but ever fearful. Every day they played
together the Amati, the Guarnerius and the Strad and
when the door bell rang there was a moment's panic in
the shop. Those who came were curtly treated and they
came no more.

IV

It was morning in the little shop. Bibbs came slowly
out of his silent room, the Strad under his arm. He laid

THE SOUNDING STRINGS IO9

the violin on the counter and lifted the window shades.
His face was pale and haggard in the sun-light. He un-
bolted the door, took up the noble instrument and picked
its strings. His beloved phrases from the Pilgrims*
Chorus sounded faintly.

Suddenly the door opened and the bell above it
clanged furiously. A man entered.

"Hello, Bibbs!" he said. "At last Fve come to get the
Strad."

As the beard of the old man swept the strings they
sighed. He pointed at the sound scroll saying:

"In here I have heard angels singing. Aye, sir, I have
heard them singing. In here I have heard voices from be-
yond the wall. Many men have filled its strings and tim-
bers with their souls and gone away. Ghosts of the dead
perhaps a thousand ghosts are in it, sir, and today there's
a new one."

"Bibbs, what do you mean?"

"That he is dead. The man who loved me and this
instrument is dead. Take it, sir, and go away."

Its owner took it and as he went away he laughed
and muttered, saying: "Bibbs is crazy."

11. GENIUS

NEWSPAPER writing has been for many tlie gate to the
path of glory. It was, I think., in the early nineties that a
slim, modest young man came to my office with a bulky
manuscript. He was Stephen Crane, and the manuscript
was The Red Badge of Courage a piece of driftwood
that had stranded two or three times before it came to
my beach. At least two magazines had declined it. The
manuscript was slightly worn. Ed Marshall, a Sunday
editor, and one of the most brilliant men on Park Row,
had sent its author to me. He had told me of the boy
Crane who lived in a colony of artist friends, and who
made rather a poor living as a free-lance reporter. I went
home with his script and spent a part of the night read-
ing it. I found the story a vivid and powerful piece of
work. One fact surprised me. Here and there I observed
that Crane's sense of diction was, more or less, indifferent
to grammatical rules. The slips were not glaring. His
imagination would have run away with his mind in
school. It would have been busy with the world around
him. I have learned that he had been a poor student. To
him prosaic lesson books would have been a bore. I have
since met other men of genius like him.

I bought the serial rights of The Red Badge and put
it out in the syndicate. A big thing never fails to produce
a big effect. This did. The editor of the Philadelphia Press
wrote that his fellow editors, the reporters, the composi-
tors, even the pressmen, who had read the story, were
eager to meet Crane, Would I bring him over? I did. The

no

GENIUS III

thing that impressed me in this little journey was Crane's
excitement over Kipling's ballads. His favorite was "The
Young British Soldier." Two or three times, as we sat
together, he repeated four of its lines and talked of their

content. In this vivid flash was the spirit of an empire:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains.
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I sent him to Mexico for new color. He wrote for
me a number of vivid sketches of the life he saw there.
The best of them was, I think, "The Ass Who Carried the
Mountain" if my memory of the title is correct. The
things I published were put in scrapbooks and what be-
came of them when I sold my business I know not. I fear
that these interesting sketches are utterly lost.

There were a number of clever young writers on
Park Row with whom I dined about once a week, gen-
erally at Mouquin's. We organized the Lanthorne Club
for which we found a quaint little home on Monkey Hill
in William Street. There we lunched every day and dined
once a week. Those boys were a witty and irresponsible
lot of Bohemians who knew the town and some were
skilled in the gentle arts of separating a friend from his
money. They were good fellows but they were able bor-
rowers. They had mastered the profound strategies of
poker.

When Crane returned he came into the Lanthorne
CluK I warned him not to play poker with the boys but
he had to get his trimming, and he did. What a guileless,
gentle, lovable country boy he was! The Lanthornites
were all fond of him. He was their hero.

112 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

He came naturally by his sympathy for the girls of
the street expressed in his row with a police officer who
had arrested one of them and in his vivid tale of Maggie*
He had a chivalrous nature unfettered by conventional
ideas of propriety. He had, moreover, a beautiful head
and face. His eyes seemed to have a singular gift. They
could see colors that were quite invisible to other eyes.
I remember a night on the shore when we were looking
seaward and he told of seeing colors that we were not
able to distinguish.

The war with Spain was coming on and Stephen
wanted to go to Cuba. I gave him $700 in Spanish gold
and sent him on his way. He had a belt of chamois skin
in which his gold could be carried. He went to Jackson-
ville, where he waited more than a month before he put
to sea in a tug with Scovil, the World correspondent.
They were some sixty miles on their way when the tug-
boat began to lose its bottom and they took to the open
boat. Soon the story of "The Open Boat" came to me and
a report from Stephen. Offshore the open boat had foun-
dered. They had to swim. Before they took to the water
Steve had thrown his gold into the sea.

I made no further effort to cover Cuba, and with my
best wishes the young man went away for Mr. Hearst
the beginning of a long career as a war correspondent. It
is to be regretted. A great genius for letters, in a rather
frail setting, spent itself in hardship and exposure and in
hasty writing to catch the first mail. When he gave up
and went to London at last he was a wreck his health
and money gone. Joseph Conrad and Henry James be-
friended him. With $500 given by James he went to the
Harz Mountains to begin the hopeless task of recovering
with the help of his faithful and devoted wife.

GENIUS 113

Eugene Field was another newspaperman and al-
ways remained one. What a jovial good fellow he was!
He had a great fondness for big, sonorous oaths. His
voice was deep and vibrant, his love of chewing tobacco
unequaled in my observation. We went together to the
famous Bohemian resorts of New York. The most de-
lightful one was Pedro's.

There was a man we used to see at Pedro's who deeply
engaged our interest. He would have been a candidate for
a novel if Dickens could have seen him. But first a word
about the setting. Pedro was a little Spaniard, his place a
rambling, one-storied structure in the shadow of old St.
Andrew's Church, on Duane Street, near Centre. Its red
entrance door led to the bar. Behind it was the cuisine and
around it unexpected caverns, each with its dining party
at night. Back of the closed doors one could hear a cheer-
ful popping of corks and many compliments for the
cooking. His quail, woodcock and squab, his old Bur-
gundy and champagne served always at a grateful tem-
perature were the talk of the town that knew Pedro.

The man who chiefly interested us was a Dutchman
of the old Knickerbocker type, well past middle age, mas-
sive, large, round. He was a merryhearted Falstaflf of a
man, with long, white side whiskers and a protuberant
abdomen. I am sure he had not seen his feet for many
years. His sole business in life was filling his stomach with
food and drink and his waking hours with joy.

His faithful coachman drove him to his office at
twelve o'clock. There he drew $50 in cash and proceeded
to Pedro's little inn. His only daily task was that of spend-
ing $jo for happiness.

The big round table was always ready for him, with
bottles of rum and rye and Scotch and bourbon grouped
in a circle at the center of it. He sat down to wait for his

114 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

retainers, the famous wits and storytellers of Park Row:
Ed Mott, of the Sun; Nym Crinkle, of the World; Billy
Fales, Ed Welch, and others quite as well known.

Pedro would welcome him and take his orders. Soon
the table was filled. The jolly Dutchman was like a king
with his jesters. For hours the room would ring with his
laughter while his face glowed with benevolence. Field
said that he had never seen a more inspiring array of
whiskers or a happier face. We were invited to the big
round table. Field was asked what he would have to
drink. Bourbon, he answered. Lifting his glass, he said:

"Some lean to Canary
And some to Medary,
But it's quite the contrary
I take for my horn.
Your foreign libation's
A mere aggravation
When one's education
Inclines him to corn."

A. C. Wheeler (Nym Crinkle) was the wittiest
writer I have known on Park Row. Often his wit would
cut to the bone. He was a man of intense feeling.

Ed Mott said to him: "I see that you have been pitch-
ing into my friend Eli Perkins/ 3

"Yes," said Wheeler. "Armed with a sense of rectitude
and a fine-tooth comb, I have entered the arena deter-
mined to remove Eli from the body of art."

When the evening shadows began to fall, the king
would count what remained of his cash, drive to the house
of some poor widow on the East Side no doubt, he had
a list of them and leave the money at her door. Then he
hastened homeward.

A time came when he could not carry his huge bulk

GENIUS

and had to stay at home. There were those who said that
he could no longer get in and out of its door. He was a
product of that time when Delmonico and Riccadonna
flourished on the profligate demands of the gourmand and
when physicians were busy day and night and newspapers
prospered on the advertisements of physic. The famous
restaurants have ceased to pay. They have vanished. So
have the quacks and pillmakers. Is it because science has
taught us that overeating is the ablest ally of death? Per-
haps the church has suffered because fewer people are in
constant pain and fear of dissolution.

One day after two years' absence I dropped in at
Pedro's. The place was deserted. The master was asleep in
a chair. A waiter whispered that he had tuberculosis. The
poor man awoke. He was but a shadow of his former self.
He would have me drink a glass of wine with him. There
was a curious pathos in his toast as he raised his glass and
said:

"Happy days!"

"Well, he was dying, the inn was dying and new days
were coming for Pedro. They were near, and I hope that
he found them better than any he had known.

But to return to my friend and companion in Bo-
hemia. It is curious how little we suspect the things ahead
of a man of genius with whom we are on familiar terms.
Field gave me seventy pages of his manuscript on vellum
done as only he could do it, with initials in color and
quaint drawings. I gave it to a friend. It is now priceless.

In my editorial career I have seen young fellows of
great talent come along, of whom big things were ex-
pected. Many of them have fallen by the way. One was
ruined by a passion for poker. He spent himself in pro-
digious efforts to get something for nothing. He used to

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

tell me of thirty-six-hour sessions at the poker table. The
main business o his life was that of recovering losses in
cash and vitality. Yet he had a fancy unique and capable.
It reminded me of Riley's and Field's.

Another candidate for the path of glory was a born
gambler and lady-killer. No man I knew was quite so
well prepared as he for a successful literary career. He had
learning, humor, wit, ingenuity, and a brilliant style.
Moreover, he had the keenest sense of powerful and dra-
matic effects. His ingenuity was often diverted to the deli-
cate arts of ingratiation and of borrowing on a vanished
credit. He was a master liar. The hearts of his friends had
been toughened by his feet. They were like stone when
he hove in sight. Yet we respected his talents. Moreover,
there was a certain charm in his personality. Soon or late
he would try his famous Brooklyn Bridge argument. It
was a penetrating shot. With this he stormed your de-
fenses. The cost of capitulation would be about $25.

"I am going to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge," he
would say with a sad countenance. "Damn my crooked
soul! It's all up with me. I am here to thank you for all
your kindness and to say goodbye. In two hours I shall be
at the bottom of the East River."

Shocked by these solemn words, you would ask:
"What's the trouble?"

"Oh, Fm up against it. I'm broke. I have neither
money, courage, friends, nor self-respect. I'm done.
There's no hope for me."

He would cover his face with his hands and shake his
head. He looked as if he meant it; perhaps he did. Every
decent man is a born lifesaver. This was like the cry of
help out beyond the life lines. You thought of the long
drop from the middle span of the bridge, of the noisome
depths of dirty water below, and you forgot your own

GENIUS 117

needs. You became an Importunate lender, begging him to
take $25 and brace up for a new start. He would resolve to
do it. Again his life was saved. He lived to be an old man
writing cheap thrillers for small pay. Always it cost $10 to
see him a diversion that ceased to be worth the money.

I knew one literary genius who was a proved crook
and only one. He needed no more than a fair endowment
of honesty to put him near the front rank. He set out on
the shining path with the wrong pair of shoes on his feet.
He was a handsome young man who came now and then
to my office. He had a Dutch name but there was no
trace of the foreigner in his talk or manners. He was one
of the most remarkable characters I have known.

He explained that he was a cousin of one Victor
L'Amoreaux a gentleman who lived at Versailles, in
France, and who was the nearest living relative of George
Sand. The manuscripts of the gifted lady had come into
L'Amoreaux's possession. Among them were many tales
and essays never published. He, the man with the Dutch
name, had been commissioned to translate the tales and
was offering them for sale. This announcement was of un-
usual interest and the more so because of his calm, delib-
erate, and convincing manner of speech. He stammered
a little. What an effect of candor is imparted by this in-
firmity! Often I have wondered if in his case it was real
or assumed. The little habit gave him all the time neces-
sary for a plausible answer when he was questioned.

He left with me a number of the translated tales.
After all, the proof of the pudding was the eating of it.
I read the tales and was astonished by their quality. My
associates agreed with me that George Sand might well
have written them. They were strong and vivid pictures
of French life. I was convinced and bought them. I re-
call that dear old John Swinton, long one of Mr. Dana's

Il8 FROM STORES OP MEMORY

most brilliant helpers on the editorial page of the Sun,
declared that a certain rustic tale in the series was the best
piece of literary work that he had seen in years.

By and by the Dutchman sold an alleged posthumous
novel of George Sand to one of the great magazines. The
editors were more than satisfied with the quality of the
story. They were enthusiastic. It was a masterful, ro-
mantic tale. They had published certain of the short
pieces on their merit, but before advertising a long serial
by the distinguished Frenchwoman it occurred to them
that they ought to be sure of their claims. They sought
proof as to UAmoreaux and his relationship to the author
and some account by him of how he happened to be in
possession of her manuscripts. Their messenger learned
that I/Amoreaux was a fiction and that Mme. Dudevant
had left no posthumous work.

Now, here was a man of remarkable gifts. If he had
played the game honestly he might have made a great
success. He simply cheated himself out of a reputation
and a distinguished career.

My observation is that talent is plentiful, but that
character to support and direct it is rare. I have known
at least a dozen men any one of whom could have won
distinction in the art of writing if he had had self-
restraint and a sound footing. It was Thoreau who said
that when a man stands in his own way everything is in
his way.

12. UNKNOWN HUMORISTS

I JOGGED along to my young manhood with nay feet on
the ground out of which came all the strength I have
been able to give to the problems of life. In the green,
gray-bouldered slopes, the wooded ledges, the singing
brooks and the great wilderness near our home I found
the inspiration of beauty. The mother earth seems to givfc
to men and to trees vitality and strength to wrestle with
the winds.

For years after I began to live in New York City I
went back to the soil as one returns to a beloved mother.

Two friends were often with me in this returning.
They were James W. Johnson, my business partner, and
A. Barton Hepburn, the eminent banker who was born
in my "neck of the woods/* Hepburn and I hunted and
fished together in the barrens of Newfoundland, on the
Gaspe Peninsula, and in the Rocky Mountains. He was a
wit and the greatest master of the lost art of letter writ-
ing I have ever known.

One beautiful, sunlit day on the St. John River we
stranded our canoes on a pebbly bar of sand and sat down
for luncheon. As he ate he told me the best political story
I have ever heard:

<e l was the comptroller of the United States. Soon I
had to appoint an assistant comptroller. I had been too
busy to give the matter any thought. One day a man
faultlessly dressed came into my office. High silk hat,
gold-headed cane, impressive manners!

tc 'I believe this is Mr. Hepburn?* he said, as he put

I2O FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Bis hat on a table and flicked a speck of dust from his
sleeve with a spotless handkerchief.

" "It is,* I answered.

" C I have the honor, sir, of presenting the application
of Elijah Smith of San Francisco for the position of
assistant comptroller/

"He took a number of papers from his pocket and
added: 1 also have the honor to present the endorsement
of Mr. Smith by the two senators and all the congressmen
from that state/

"He put the application and the endorsement in my
hands and went on: 'It gives me pleasure, sir, to be able
to present to you the endorsement of the governor of
California who has known Mr. Smith for many years and
that of the vice-president of the United States/

"More papers were passed to me and then the gentle-
man presented his own glowing endorsement of Elijah
Smith.

" C I have known him, sir, for more than ten years.
He is an able banker, an exemplary citizen, a good neigh-
bor, a good husband, and a good father/

" *You have made the application of Mr. Smith
worthy of careful consideration/ I said, as he picked up
his hat. I rose and accompanied him to the door* There he
turned to me and said in a low tone: It only remains for
me to add, sir, that I wouldn't hire Elijah Smith for a job
as important as that of shoveling dung! Good day, sir/ **

George Curry was a son of the soil who reminded
me of a mighty oak. Sometimes he indulged in a kind of
fun that was unique.

He was a giant of a man, six-feet-two and broad at
the shoulders. The other guides were wont to say he was
"a hard man to handle." There was no one who cared to

UNKNOWN HUMORISTS 121

disagree with him. When he set out for the fishing water,
ten miles away, he never varied his mighty sweep of the
oars.

One night everyone at Bishop's Hotel on the lake
shore was awakened by a wild yell that rent the silence
of the night. Its echoes ran away in the forest like a herd
of bellowing bulls. Again it sounded. Many of us rose and
stuck our heads out the front windows to see what was
going on.

In the moonlight I could see a man in a boat near
the shore just below.

"What ye yelling about?" I asked.

I recognized the voice of George Curry.

"Just want to be licked that's all, mister. God
knows a man that acts as I do orto be licked/'

Another wild yell tore the air like a rocket.

"You're disturbing our rest/' I said.

"An' I'm disturbin' my own rest. It's shameful.
Abusin' myself an' everybody else. Some o' you men orto
come down here an' give me a lickin'. I need it. Three or
four o' you fellers orto be able to handle me."

Again he yelled.

"Ain't there nobody to obleege me?" he pleaded.
"I'm behavin' as bad as I know how. If anyone Hvin'
orto be pounded flat to the ground it's me. Come on
somebody. Don't keep me beggin' here all night."

Again that terrifying yell.

I said: "George, there's no man here who'd be willing
to lick you if he could. Come in and go to bed."

"Can't afford it," he answered.

"Why not?"

"Cost me too much to git agoin'. I'll row over to the
other hotel an' try my luck there. I'm tired o' wanderin*

122 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

round these woods tryin' to find someone who'll make me
behave. By God! I be/'

He shoved his boat off the beach, put his strength on
the oars and was soon far out on the moonlit water.

I have seen the man sleep and heard him snore while
rowing at night but he seemed to be able to keep his
direction.

"Trench Louis" was near eighty years of age when I
found him in his little camp on Canada Lake. I had made
a long tramp with Isaiah Perkins from Jessup River to
see this remarkable man. Canada Lake was a lonely bit of
water about twenty miles from anywhere in 1911 when
I saw it for the first and last time. We found Louis living
in a little camp made by his own hands of small spruce
logs rived and fitted with the bark on. He had a little
garden, and a few chickens. These, with the fish of the
lake and the cattle of the wilderness, gave him an abun-
dance of food.

On the way in Isaiah gave me an account of French
Louis's singular plan of life.

"Nobody offers Louis anything to drink when he
is in camp/* said my friend. "There are fifty-one weeks
in the year when you couldn't pull him off the water
wagon with a team of horses. Years ago it was a pleas-
ure to come here and see Louis and hear his stories.
It is fun to listen while he talks. But his friends do not
come often these days. He has grown old and his camp
is untidy. He lets things slide. He traps through the
winter and goes out to Speculator with his pelts in the
spring. When the last one has been sold he uses his money
for an annual celebration. Gets drunk and stays drunk
for a week or so and tries to break down the sobriety of
the neighborhood. It is the primitive man bursting the

UNKNOWN HUMORISTS 125

fetters of a monotonous rectitude. When his last cent
is gone he tramps back to his camp and not a drop of
liquor passes his lips until, again, he goes out with his
pelts in the spring. I asked him once why he didn't save
his money.

" 'What I do with him? 3 he asked. The deer he no
want him. The fish he no want him. He is no good for
mak de vegetabull. I lose him may be. He mak me troub.
He feel lak de boat on my back.' "

"What will become of him when his strength is
gone?" I asked.

"Probably he will die in the woods alone as the
wounded deer dies. His heart will fail suddenly."

Louis was glad to see us. I had a hard night with him.
I have never known a greater enemy of sleep than the
musty old hammock in which I sought repose and eating
was still more difficult, but in the old man I found a rich-
ness of humor and dialect which kept me happy. I think
that he told me the best story I have heard in my time.
As he talked I was busy with my pencil making notes or
the story would have been lost. I had then a memory
trained to be useful but no memory could register and
hold Louis's unreasonable treatment of the English lan-
guage. It should be remembered that his final syllables
were strongly accented, that he used d for tb and bin for
have been. This is the story:

"By cripe, he's a purty bad fishin*. I bin los* all de
bigges' fish what I git hoi* of it. I bin kill de time away
more dan I tink I can stan it for lose him all one day
so I tol' myself dat I got a good deal o* boat what needs
a paint an' I tink I go shore for paint him up. I mak some
hots water for cook tea. Purty quick long come Mose
St. Germain. He mak de yell lak a man when he have de
money too much an de whisky spoil him up. I bin scare.

124 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I say 'What de troub?' He say 'Mak hurry up so fas 5
ye can't. Bring it de hax for git de bear/

"He run lak buck deer. I keep close to bum's coat-
tail. Purty quick we see Pete Levine. He stan him up by
beeg tree. By cripe, he trembull like somebody scare him
up inside. I toP him what de troub?

"He say Tittle bear been climb up tree. By cripe, lak
nough big bear come an' try it for climb up Pete Levine/

tc l courage him up much I bin could do it an' I tol'
him for take hax an' chop down de tree down. Lak nough
I ketch little bear maybe.

"Pete he bin chop. Mose he bin chop. Bym-by de
tree he begin for trembull. By cripe, little bear he bin
hollaire lak he no tink we was use him right. De tree bin
fall. I bin ketch little bear. I hoP on to him he hoi' on
to me with him toenail. By cripe, I fin' it out someting
ver* much. Little bear when he bin up tree not so beeg
lak when ye git hoi' of it. When ye git hoi' of it he lose
him tempaire. I have hoP o* him hair. He have hoF o 3
my meat. I try for skin him, he try for skin me. By cripe,
I fin' it out he goin' git through firs'. I don' know what
he was do if it not bin I tol' him *y e damn fool, le* go.
Go on 'bout yer business/

"I bin git myself purty scratch. Oh 3 le bon Dieu! I
fin' it out man toenail no can stan' it for mak de scratch
with bear toenail/'

This delightful bit of philosophy ended the story.
I regret that I could not have dug for a year in this re-
markable mine of humor but a twenty-mile tramp and
the dirty camp kept me away.

Eithel Wilcox was one of the mighty hunters with a
gift of humor. He had also great common sense and ex-
cellent character. A. B. Hepburn used to say that a liberal

UNKNOWN HUMORISTS IZJ

education might have made Wilcox a big man. He was
handicapped, however, by a defective palate which caused
him to talk through his nose. This peculiarity gave to his
humor a singular quaintness. There is nothing in my mem-
ory quite like the effect of it. My friend Judge Theodore
Swift of Potsdam was often in the woods with EitheL
He knew the great guide as no other man knew him. I
have heard Swift imitate his remarkable dialect by the
hour.

The genial jurist is now gone and so I set myself
the task of rescuing from oblivion one or more of these
delightful relics of a great generation.

"I was a young boy when I first went into the woods
with him," said Swift. "The first morning while Eithel
was making a fire I went over to the spring for a pail
of water. I saw many deer tracks in the soft earth around
the spring. I called loudly to EitheL He came over.

** 'There must have been a dozen deer here last
night/ I said. Took at these tracks.'

"He glanced at them and answered: 'Boy, ye know
a deer has four feet an* every time he steps he puts 'em
all on the ground/ "

Next day they were tramping along a mossy trail in
thick woods. Young Swift was carrying a rifle. Suddenly
a black bear rounded a bend in the trail and trotted to-
ward them. He had come within about fifty feet of the
hunters before he saw them. The boy raised his rifle and
fired. The bear, having turned quickly, leaped into the
bushes. The two ran after him. Eithel found a few drops
of blood on the bushes but the bear was gone. They trailed
him for miles, the sign growing fainter. They came to a
place where the bear had squeezed through a thicket of
cedars. On one of them was some hair and dry blood.

Eithel turned to the boy and said:

126 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"It ain't no use. That bear is wownded in the hind-
quarters an* he's travelin* fast*"

They set out for the trail. Eithel stopped him and
said:

"Boy, when ye see a bear an* he's lookin' right at ye
it's a good idee to shoot at the end that's towards ye."

"Wilcox was a man of steady habits. These great men
of the woods could be trusted when at work. But when
the season was near its end they were likely to invest a
part of their money in a week or so of joy and loud talk
in which they freely gave air to their suppressed opinions.

13. GREAT SCOTT
The Storyteller of Lost Lake

THE most remarkable character I have known Is un-
doubtedly Philo Scott. He was the last of the sturdy old
guides. Born in the lonely edge of the wilderness about
1840, he had got from his fathers a dialect that belonged
to the last quarter of the eighteenth century. I studied It
with care and have found it a paying mine of character
talk.

Philo's mind was a curiosity shop; his body a power
plant with energy enough in it for three men, a dog, and
a pair of horses. He was like an old tree bent by high
winds but still defying them with abundant vitality. He
was indeed a brother of the trees. In a frigid valley of the
Adirondacks he chopped through the long winter and in
the spring he used to say that his sap was goin* up. In
the early summer he became a part of the deep woods
wherein he had a camp and a garden on Big Deer Pond
often called Lost Lake.

Every year he moved to the cluster of log huts with
boyish enthusiasm, his fretful little wife with him. He
carried a heavy pack, a gun and often a pet coon in a
cage. In bad footing he carried the gun and coon in one
hand and lifted his wife with the free arm and strode
through the mire while she loudly complained of her dis-
comfort.

"Wai, Mis* Scott," he'd say. "Hold yer temper. We're

over the worst of it."

127

128 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

His most severe rejoinder was that of calling her
"Mis* Scott." In his part of the country where you dropped
the first name and called one Mis' or Mr. it was a token
of reproof the first step in a rupture of friendly rela-
tions. Often she would answer: "Stop Mis 5 Scottin* me,
if ye please. I've had all the Mis' Scottin 3 I need."

She might continue her scolding but he made no
answer. Having arrived, he tumbled the beds out into the
sunlight to be aired and dried and began to get his cracked
and rusty cookstove piped, cleaned, and in order. He was
a great mender and the blankets and furniture needed re-
pair. Then he planted his garden. When every detail was
ready for the coming of the early fishermen the problem
of provisions was complicated by a journey of 26 miles
to and from the source of supply.

A big-boned man nearly six feet tall, he tramped
with long strides in a limp, loose-jointed fashion throwing
his feet forward with the sway of his body. I never saw a
more awkward mover on a trail but the rapidity with
which he covered ground was appalling to one who tried
to keep his pace. In his spirit and manner of life he was
essentially an eighteenth century man depending on his
own strength. He was an old man when he took his first
ride on a railroad.

One summer he got what he called the "syphone idee."
His spring was a little above the camp and about twenty
rods away. Iron pipe could bring the water to a con-
venient point by gravity but the pipe would have to be
bent down into the spring, and how to start the flow
was his problem. From someone he got "the syphone idee
of hasting the water by suction." Having hauled the pipe
to camp on a jumper, he connected it and bent its upper
end into the spring. Then came the modern problem of
starting the flow. With sublime faith in himself he got

GREAT SCOTT 129

down on Bis hands and knees, taking the pipe end In his
mouth, and applied to it all the power of suction he had
in his body. It was insufficient. He "sucked an* drawed
an' drawed an 3 sucked for a time but couldn't fetch her."
No wonder, for the pipe was nearly two hundred feet
long. Mrs. Scott watched him with amused disapproval.

"Philo, stop struggling" she said, "Yell bust yer-
self."

He arose and shook his head mournfully saying: "It
ain't in my mortal frame to do it. That's a bigger job o*
suckin' than it looks for. It'll cost money but Fll hev
to git a pump."

That he did. The water began flowing and continued
to flow. It was the pride of his heart. After that he called
himself "the champion water h'ister of the Adirondacks."

After supper he worked till dark in the garden so that
his midsummer guests could have peas and beans and
radishes and squash and strawberries. In addition to that,
he cut the wood and did all the fetching. If Mis* Scott
was poorly as often happened, he also did the cooking and
made the beds. Often he was out of temper.

All sportsmen had to be up for breakfast served
soon after daylight. He would have no late sleepers in his
camp. Philo could not understand why a man should
care to sleep after daylight. He would not put up with
it. A raucous dinner horn announced the rising time. If
one lingered there was loud talk about lazy men. He had
no hesitation in expressing his opinion of a guest. From
daylight to dark in camp we could hear the steady dron-
ing of his voice. We called it "Philoing." When he was
alone he talked to himself.

At breakfast we always ate "griddlers" big, broad,
well-browned griddlers and delicious maple syrup, and
bacon and coffee.

130 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Almost every summer Philo had a little museum of
wild animals at the camp a fox chained to a pivoted pole
that gave him a circular runway, a coon, or a young cub.

One day he was on the inlet of the lake with his rifle
when he saw a blue heron catching small trout and swal-
lowing them. The heron is undoubtedly a great destroyer
of small game fish. Philo raised his gun and was taking
aim when the big bird rose in the air. The shot broke d
wing. The heron came back to earth. Here was a candi-
date for the museum. Philo and the bird had a foot race.
The man won but not until he had learned that a heron
can step lively and put up an able defense when its liberty
is in peril. In his pocket he had a heavy fishline with a
big cork on it a part of his outfit for catching bullpout,
of which he was very fond. A guest finally saw Philo come
into camp leading the reluctant heron, with the fishline
tied around the bird's neck.

"What ye got the cork on his bill for?" the man
asked,

"SoYt' he can't peck/' said Philo.

"Can he peck?"

"ToFable severe. When he hits anything he calcu-
lates to put a hole in it an* he ain't often disappointed. If
ye don't think so, let him fetch ye a peck."

Often he was in a gentle mood when winding from
the skein of his memory. His talk would be broken here
and there by affirmatory interjections almost whispered.
They were: "Uh huh! Ay uh! It's a fact."

To hear one of his stories was an experience the like
of which few men have had. I took notes on his method
and probably no man living knows it as I know it. A
Philo Scott story was a curious, zigzag complex of inci-
dents. He could not go straight, for one event would re-
mind him of another that was too important to be neg-

GREAT SCOTT 13!

lected. There would be sudden shifts of scene and tense
and curious clauses introduced by the word "which."

One warm summer day I was at work on the veranda
of my little study in the woods when Philo Scott came up
the hill to see me. I made him welcome. He was in a com-
municative mood and I had my pad and pencil. This is
the story that he told me and I think I have never heard
a narrative so remarkable. It stands alone. Its title is:

THE ZIG ZAG STORY

One day I started fer to go to my traps with ol' Susy
which ye know I had two hounds, Susy and Tige. Susy,
w'y ye know, she'd lock jaws with a lion if I told her to.
Ay yuh! uh huh! I seen they was a bear in the trap an*
Susy say, she was a dandy which there ain't no mistake.
Got her from Adirondack Murray. Wy! didn't you know
'at I knew him? Guided him fer years. Uh huh! Ayes!
W'y one day me an' him was a floatin* on Surnac which
was a Friday. No twant. Twas a Thursday. Bert Dobson
an' his wife come along in a canoe kind o* foolin' with
one 'nother an* all to once they upsot an* in she went. I
see she was a-gugglin' there in the water so in I jumps
a'ter her. Wy I'd knowed her ever since she was that high.
Ayes sir! uh huh! Knowed her since she was a baby. An 9
one day I carried her on my back more'n twenty mile
which ye know we was a stout f am'ly. My mother'd think
nothin' o* doin her mornin's work which she'd six cows
to milk and hippin* a baby off five mile fer a visit, an'
be back in time to git supper ready. Ayuh! Uh huh! "W'y
ye know folks was diff'rent them days. My mother had
'leven children an' my wife had ten an* when Susy the

132 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

second child was born, ye know, I named her a'ter my
houn*. I was over to Sumac the same as Monday which
the child was born Tuesday night, I got to worryin* an 9
I put her through the woods eighty-five mile with a small
boat on my back 'cept when I come to water. Made it
inside o* twenty- four hours. Uh huh, I did! An 5 say goin*
up the Bog River that evenin* I hearn a panther kind o*
purrin* in the brush. Ay uh! They will. An* say, did ye
know that a panther can't run more'n half a dozen jumps?
W*y their lungs ain't bigger'n yer two fists. No sir. Ain't
got no pump fer wind, but say, can't they grab a deer?
Wy one night I was a floatin' an 5 I knocked a hole in a
deer an* when I was a draggin* of him out I hearn a noise
kind o' like that . . . (makes a purring sound) . . . Tow
I wa*n*t scairt I slit the deer open an' was a-dressin' of
him off an' say did ye know that a deer ain't got no gall
on their livers? Ye know that's the reason they can eat
p*ison. Wy one day Senator White come over to my camp.
We went out an* tuk our rifles along fer to keep the deer
f 'om harmin* of us. We got over to Nick Pond, an* there
was a big buck out on the Rocky Pint where the Lone
Pine is, an' I could see a panther out on a bough o' that
pine right above the deer. The Senator had been showin*
me a writin* 'bout me in the Sarycuse paper. I was down
there the year before. Wy ayuh! Didn't you know that
the Sarycuse sportin* club ast me down there. I went.
Got up one mornin* at daylight an* went over to Short
Lake Store for a load o' pervisions an* fetched up at New-
hasane in time fer the noon train, an* say they was a man
lay drunk on the track down by the switch an* the train
a-comin* 'bout a mile off like a buck deer when you've
ript the seat of his pants a little. I run down to where
the man was, an* stubbed my toe on that damn* switch an*
fell flat. I never was so mad at any switch in my life *cept

GREAT SCOTT 133

the one I invented. Wye ay uh! didn't ye know I in-
vented a switch? Good land yes! an 3 this is the idee of it.

In telling the story I always stop at the switch. The
last time I saw Uncle Fie the name by which his friends
knew him he had developed what he called a "verycus
vein" and had kidney trouble. He had bought a bottle of
kidney and liver cure and confidently expected that "it
would fetch her." It is curious that his impersonal enemies
were always given, in his talk, the feminine gender. He
seemed to regard a serious problem as something in the
nature of a woman. The truth is, this ingenious mender
could not mend himself. Suddenly the great tree fell.

He lived and talked and died as did the men of old.
That last day he probably had his boots on, looking for
the return of a strength literally worn out.

14. HOLY POKER
A Story of a Great "Sucker Trap" in the Old Northwest

IN a town near where I was born one of the great pioneers,
now an old man, is still living. Some fifty years ago alone
in a canoe he descended the Athabasca River to Great Slave
Lake, crossed it, and went down the Mackenzie a jour-
ney of more than 3,000 miles in the wildest country on
this continent. Probably no man in the world has the in-
land sky and water wisdom of Sile Malterner. It is like
that of the wild goose. Site's language those days reminds
me of a bucking bronco. Often it tossed him out of the
saddle of a calm historian and the air was cut by ex-
pletives not often found in well-laundered English. So the
reporter who seeks to reproduce his vividness faces a prob-
lem.

I was on a river with him in Canada when he told
me a poker story too good to be lost. This is the story
about as he told it:

One night I got to Edmonton. Hell yes! Even then
it was quite a town. The hotel was kept by a Chinaman,
name o* Wong Lee. Smart feller! Spoke English. I went
into the barroom. Big poker game goin 9 on there biggest
game I ever see! Plenty o* money in that town to play
with. It was fur money. The mayor, some slick-lookin*
gents from the East, an' a couple o' roughnecks wearin*
spectacles with colored glass in 'em was playln'. The glass
in one pair o' them spectacles was pea green. I noticed that

134

HOLY POKER 135

'cause the man looked up at me fer half a minute when
I come in. I'd seen a lot o' fellers with colored glasses
in that country. Ye know, some men git snow blind up
there in the North. The player with the pea-green spec-
tacles looked up ag'in at me. The others eyed me plenty.
I didn't want to git shot so I went back to the bar where
I couldn't see no cards.

"This feller's all right, boys," says Wong. "Just come
up the river from the north."

The game went on an' I stood there where I couldn't
see nothin' but the chips an' the players. Hell and deep
snow! That man with the pea-green spectacles had a year's
wages in front o' him. When he lost an' sometimes when
he didn't he'd tear up the cards an' call fer a new pack.
A number o' times he done that.

Then he won with a full house. Threes er better called
fer a jack pot. So a ten-dollar jack started. Nobody
opened. The pot was sweetened with five more.

They all come in. The cards was dealt an' the mayor
opened fer ten dollars.

" 'Taint 'nough, I'll double it," says the man with
the green glasses. Only four stayed in. The mayor bet the
limit fifty dollars. The green-glass man doubled the bet.
The other two come along in. The mayor doubled ag'in.
Say, by the white throne o' God! I never see nothin'
like it. The money was meltin' like snow in the spring-
time an' pourin' into that pond in the middle o' the table!
The mayor an' that green-eyed son o' Satan kep' doublin'
till, by an' by, the bet was called. I dunno what they had
but they all threw down an' the man with the green
spectacles reached out with both hands an' raked in the
money.

I had a bite to eat an' went to bed an' was off early
in the mornin*. Didn't think no more o' that damn' poker

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

game. Almos* f ergot it till I got to Athabasca Landin' one
day awhile later to take a steamboat. The ol' boat was at
her dock loadin* wood fer the engine. I got on when she
blew her whistle.

We'd been chuggin* along awhile when I see a man
lookin' at me.

"Who is that man? 5 * I says to the feller I was talkin'
with.

"Don't know/' says he. "He looks like the Peleus Kid.
If it is, don't play no poker er start no row with him."

The man come up to me an' says: "Glad to see ye
ag'in, stranger."

"I ain't got no recollection o' meetin* you before," I
says. "Who be ye?"

"BiU Somers. I ain't no Napoleon Bonaparte but you
see me fight a battle that was a kind of a Waterloo. Do
ye 'member that game o' poker at Wong Lee's? You
watched it fer a while. I was the man that wore the pea-
green spectacles."

"Say, man, you won a sledload o' mink an' ermine an*
a team o' dogs," says I.

He smiled kind o' friendly an' says he: "Look here,
boy. Poker is a canoe trip in a long, bad stretch o* rapids.
Ye got to know how to read water an' steer right er some
rock will hit yer bottom like a sledge hammer an* the
next one may rip yer belly open,"

"I made up my mind that ye knew how to read the
rapids when ye kep* raisin* *em in that jack pot," says I.

He laughed an' says he: "Don't git in a hurry, stran-
ger. Them boys thought they had a sucker. They was
dreamin* an* I woke *em up. They tried the old plan o* five
hands agin one but it didn't work. They ruined a friend o*
mine last year. He'd been in the East an' was comin*
home to git married. When they got through with him

HOLY POKER 137

lie was like a worthless dog that's had a row with a skunk.
They had a nice, safe little trick* They'd git a stranger
into the game an* then, boy, he begun to bump the rocks.
They all played agin him an' divided his money. They
kep' him between hell an' high water. Them fellers run
the town, an' the ol' sucker trap. Now listen to me. I'm
a real pious man."

He stopped an' lit his pipe. Say, ye know, he looked
kind o' pious. Damned if he didn't.

The feller says to me, says he: "Ye know a pious
man can have guts in him. He needs 'em in the North-
west. I carry a gun an' can pull an' shove lead rather
sudden if I have to. My f am'ly don't worry much 'bout
met"

That cuss toP me a story then that put a kink in
my hair an' made my back feel kind o' chilly. I wouldn't
V give the fill o' yer pipe f er his piety. I says to myself
there's a man with a soul like a wooden leg.

"I got my plow an' harrer ready," says Bill Somers.
"My pard made Edmonton two weeks ahead o' me. He
pertended to be drunk an' he went from one store to
another an' bought all the playin' cards in that town,
took 'em to his room, unsealed the wrappers an' marked
every card. He sealed 'em up ag'in so ye'd never know
they'd been opened. The next day he went around among
the stores an' says he: *I was drunk las' night an' when I
git drunk I ain't got no more sense than a jackass hit by
lightnin'. I'd jump into a river to git out o' the rain. I
bought all the playin 5 cards you had anM ain't got no
more use fer *em than I'd have fer a ton o* beefsteak.
Maybe ye'd take 'em back at half the price I paid.'

"They was glad to take 'em. So the marked cards was
ready fer their part o* the job. I tell ye, boss, I'd known
that pardner o' mine fer years. Give his talents a fair

138 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

chance an' ye can trust him to do his best. Like as not
hell surprise ye with the results. But he's the only man
I know that has a soul that ain't worth savin'. No, sir.
Try it an' there'll be a horse on you. It has lost its grinders,
an' the hay o' God's grace will lay untouched in the
manger. He's the only man I ever knew who would go up
f er prayers an* pick a pocket while he was kneelin'.

"I put up at "Wong Lee's an' went around takin'
orders for the Babcock Washin* Machine. Yes, sir, that's
a part o' my job. I got acquainted with the mayor, two
fur buyers, and two other men said to be from Montreal.
The mayor wanted to entertain the Montrealers the old
gag. He proposed the poker game. It wouldn't V been
good manners fer me to do it. I always carry with me a
cashier's check fer a thousand dollars. It's better than a
high hat. The mayor got it cashed fer me an' I could
see that he thought I was a promisin' young man. I was
wearin' the pea-green glasses every day an' I says to Wong,
*I want to know that the cards are all right. Go out an'
buy a dozen packs. When I play I want to be sure 'bout
the cards.' So when the game begun the cards was all as
honest as the mayor an' the Montrealers. Ye know I like
to have things match. If yer goin' to have a race, git an
even start."

He laughed an' I says: "All marked, o' course."

"Marked! Ye could bet your life on that."

"How did ye mark 'em?"

"You write a word on the back of a playin* card with
a certain chemical. Ye won't be able to read it 'less ye
put on pea-green spectacles. Then it stands out as plain
as yer whiskers. Ye got to watch the cards careful as
they come out an' have a good memory. In a few hands
the chemical wears off. Then ye call fer a new pack."

HOLY POKER 139

"Well, of all the poker players I ever heard of, you're
the king," says I.

"You'd never earn a pound o' pork in a hog guessin',"
says he; "used to be that but I have been out o' practice
fer years. I was tryin' to rob some robbers an' ye can't
do it an' keep in the straight an' narrer way.

"At eleven o'clock the marked cards was all tore up.
I took off the glasses. My winnings was big enough as an
argument. I was goin' to play a Scotch game an' keep out
o' trouble. We'd all agreed to quit at twelve.

"A new pack come in play. That was the most
righteous pack o' cards ever shuffled. Seems so its aces an'
kings an' queens had agreed to pull together. I'd draw to
two of 'em an' in the three cards flung down in front o* me
there'd be two more saying 'Hello, Bill Somers, give 'em
a ride.' The jacks an' tens an' nine spots had combined
to help them other fellers down the slope to blue ruin.
Ye know, four jacks er four tens'll give ye consid'able
confidence but God bless my soul! how they can string
a man at a fifty-dollar limit. The profanity flows like
blood after a bullet an' keeps drippin'.

"I felt sorry. One o' them fellers could throw a stream
o' swearin' over a barn an' make a hole in the ground
on the other side of it. I spoke up kind o' soothin' an' I
says: TBoys, hadn't ye better quit?'

"They wouldn't hear to it, an' say, when a man is mad
at his luck soothin' syrup don't do him no good. It's like
puttin' liniment on a sore. It don't help none. That kind
o' madness is the rope o' the devil. At one o'clock I had
checks an' I.O.U. slips an' all the money. It was a mas-
sacree!

" 'You've got me ruined,* says the mayor.

" 'Me too,' says another gent. *I ain't got enough left
to buy a beefsteak,'

140 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"They'd wore the mad all off themselves an* cooled
down. Didn't have no more bark than a dead dog. The
oF Sucker Trap was busted*

w 'Now, gents/ says I, *you 9 ve ruined a lot o* men but
ye never unruined one o' 3 em. I'm goin' to give all o*
ye a new job an' if ye do it well I'll unruin every one
o' ye/

" '"What kind of a job?' one of 'em asked.

" 'Livin' honest. You ain't used to that kind o' thing.
It'll come hard but I'll be here to help ye an* the money
will be safe in the bank.'

"I started my meetin's the next night. Ev'ry one o'
them come up fer prayers. Fve saved two hundred souls
in that town. I'm goin' back in three months. If I find
them men have stuck to the job, they'll git their money
back. If not it'll go to the poor."

"That was the only game o' holy poker I ever heard
of/* said Sile.

PART III

SELECTIONS FROM MY WRITINGS

15. "EBEN HOLDEN"

J-ust How It Was Begun and Finished and the Product
of the First Two Days of Writing

As the readers of your first important novel are num-
bered by the million I would like you to tell us all about
die writing of that book. I want to know what was going
on in your mind as you began and as the story developed.
I wish you would quote some things from it which gave
you satisfaction and the courage to go on/*

These are the words of the able editor of this volume,
whose judgment I value. It took a degree of courage to
begin the writing of Eben Holden but my wife and I
had more than enough for the task. We knew that the
wolf was always howling at the door of the poet and
the novelist unless he was in great favor with the gods.
I was then forty years of age. For fourteen years I had
been an editor on Park Row and had seen many an able
fellow lured to poverty and distress by the pipe of the
Muse.

I had just resigned a job that paid me a good salary
because the conditions that surrounded me were impos-
sible to one of my temperament. I had only a few hun-
dred dollars in the bank. Our outlook was a trifle clouded.
"We did not know what was ahead of us. We were living
in a little apartment above a drugstore in Tarrytown
a small but cozy and comfortable home. It was the sum-
mer of 1898.

My vivid memories of the North Country and its

143

144 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

characters had been urging me to write. At last a plan
was in my mind involving the old man, with the boy in
a basket, and the farm dog moving westward out of
Vermont through the deep woods which I knew as well
as I knew the multiplication table. I knew my old man
as well as I had known my father. He had been one of
the hired men on our farm. The pack basket had been
on my back in many a tiresome journey in the wilderness*
As to the small boy, I had rather vivid memories of my
own young boyhood to help me. The people we were to
meet along the way were to be like those I had known
in my youth. I had planned no adventures for the journey,
yet there was quite a chain of them in my own experience.
The changing scenes as we went along would suggest the
things to happen. I knew the danger of any note that
would mar the seeming reality of that faring along in and
out of the trail.

I sat down by the open window on a lovely summer
morning and with a pad in my lap I began to write. The
story caught my interest and held it until the sun was
low. This was my first day's work.

CHAPTER I

Of all the people that ever went west that expedi-
tion was the most remarkable.

A small boy in a big basket on the back of a jolly
old man, who carried a cane in one hand, a rifle in the
other; a black dog serving as scout, skirmisher and rear
guard that was the size of it. They were the survivors
of a ruined home in the north of Vermont, and were
traveling far toward the valley of the St. Lawrence in
upper New York but with no particular destination.

Midsummer had passed them in their journey; their

"EBEN HOLIXEN" 145

clothes were covered with dust; their faces browning in
the hot sun. It was a very small boy that sat inside the
basket and clung to the rim, his tow head shaking as the
old man walked. He saw wonderful things, day after day,
looking down at the green fields or peering into the gloomy
reaches of the wood; and he talked about them.

"Uncle Eb is that where the swifts are?" he would
ask often; and the old man would answer, "No; they
ain't real sassy this time o' year. They lay 'round in the
deep dingles every day/'

Then the small voice would sing idly or prattle with
an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the
edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some
bird or butterfly and ask finally:

"Tired, Uncle Eb?"

Sometimes the old gentleman would say "not very/*
and keep on, looking thoughtfully at the ground. Then,
again, he would stop and mop his bald head with a big
red handkerchief and say, a little tremor of irritation in
his voice: "Tired! who wouldn't be tired with a big ele-
phant like you on his back all day? I'd be 'shamed o' my-
self t* set there an* let an old man carry me from Dan to
Beersheba. Git out now an' shake yer legs."

I was the small boy and I remember it was always a
great relief to get out of the basket, and having run
ahead, to lie in the grass among the wild flowers, and
jump up at him as he came along.

t Uncle Eb had been working for my father five years
before I was born. He was not a strong man and had never
been able to carry the wide swath of the other help in
the fields, but we all loved him for his kindness and his
knack of story-telling. He was a bachelor who came over
the mountain from Pleasant Valley, a little bundle of

146 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

clothes on his shoulder, and bringing a name that en-
riched the nomenclature o our neighborhood. It was Eben
Holden.

He had a cheerful temper and an imagination that
was a very wilderness of oddities. Bears and panthers
growled and were very terrible in that strange country.
He had invented an animal more treacherous than any in
the woods, and he called it a swift. "Sumthin' like a pan-
ther," he described the look of it a fearsome creature that
lay in the edge of the woods at sundown and made a noise
like a woman crying, to lure the unwary. It would light
one's eye with fear to hear Uncle Eb lift his voice in
the cry of the swift.

Many a time in the twilight when the bay of a hound
or some far cry came faintly through the wooded hills, I
have seen him lift his hand and bid us hark. And when
we had listened a moment, our eyes wide with wonder, he
would turn and say in a low, half whispered tone: ** *S a
swift." I suppose we needed more the fear of God, but
the young children of the pioneer needed also the fear
of the woods or they would have strayed to their death in
them.

A big bass viol, taller than himself, had long been the
solace of his Sundays. After he had shaved a ceremony
so solemn that it seemed a rite of his religion that sacred
viol was uncovered. He carried it sometimes to the back
piazza and sometimes to the barn, where the horses shook
and trembled at the roaring thunder of the strings. When
he began playing we children had to get well out of the
way, and keep our distance. I remember now the look of
him, then his thin face, his soft black eyes, his long nose,
the suit of broadcloth, the stock and standing collar and,
above all, the solemnity in his manner when that big devil
of a thing was leaning on his breast.

"EBEN HOLD EN" 147

As to his playing I have never heard a more fearful
sound in any time of peace or one less creditable to a
Christian. Week days he was addicted to the milder sin
of the flute and, after chores, if there were no one to
talk with him, he would sit long and pour his soul into
that magic bar of boxwood.

Uncle Eb had another great accomplishment. He was
what they call in the north country c< a natural cooner."
After nightfall, when the corn was ripening, he spoke
in a whisper and had his ear cocked for coons. But he
loved all kinds of good fun.

So this man had a boy in his heart and a boy in his
basket that evening we left the old house. My father and
mother and older brother had been drowned in the lake,
where they had gone for a day of pleasure. I had then a
small understanding of my loss, but I have learned since
that the farm was not worth the mortgage and that every-
thing had to be sold.

Uncle Eb and I a little lad, a very little lad of six
were all that was left of what had been in that home.
Some were for sending me to the county house; but they
decided, finally, to turn me over to a dissolute uncle, with
some allowance for my keep. Therein Uncle Eb was to be
reckoned with. He had set his heart on keeping me, but
he was a farm hand without any home or visible property
and not, therefore, in the mind of the authorities, a proper
guardian. He had me with him in the old house, and the
very night he heard they were coming after me in the
morning, we started on our journey.

I remember he was a long time tying packages of
bread and butter and tea and boiled eggs to the rim of
the basket, so that they hung on the outside. Then he put
a woolen shawl and an oilcloth blanket on its bottom,
pulled the straps over his shoulders and buckled them,

148 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

standing before the looking-glass, and, having put on my
cap and coat, stood me on the table, and stooped so that
I could climb into the basket a pack basket, that he had
used in hunting, the top a little smaller than the bottom,
Once in, I could stand comfortably or sit facing sideways,
my back and knees wedged from port to starboard.

With me in my place he blew out the lantern and
groped his way to the road, his cane in one hand, his rifle
in the other. Fred, our old dog a black shepherd, with
tawny points came after us. Uncle Eb scolded him and
tried to send him back, but I plead for the poor creature
and that settled it; he was one of our party.

"Dunno how well feed him," said Uncle Eb. "Our
own mouths are big 'nough t* take all we can carry, but
I hain* no heart t* leave 'im all lone there."

I was old for my age, they tell me, and had a serious
look and a wise way of talking, for a boy so young; but
I had no notion of what lay before or behind us.

"Now, boy, take a good look at the old house,' 5 I
remember he whispered to me at the gate that night.
"Taint likely yell ever see it ag'in. Keep quiet now/* he
added, letting down the bars at the foot of the lane.
"We're goin' west an* we mustn't let the grass grow under
our feet. Got t 5 be purty spry I can tell ye/'

It was quite dark and he felt his way carefully down
the cow paths into the broad pasture. With every step I
kept a sharp look-out for swifts, and the moon shone
after awhile, making my work easier.

I had to hold my head down, presently, when the tall
brush began to whip the basket and I heard the big boots
of Uncle Eb ripping the briars. Then we came into the
blackness of the thick timber and I could hear him feeling
his way over the dead leaves with his cane. I got down,
shortly, and walked beside him, holding on to the rifle

EBEN HOLD EN 149

with one hand. "We stumbled, often, and were long in the
trail before we could see the moonlight through the tree
columns. In the clearing I climbed to my seat again and,
by and by, we came to the road where my companion sat
down resting his load on a boulder.

"Pretty hot, Uncle Eb, pretty hot," he said to him-
self, fanning his brow with that old felt hat he wore every-
where. "We've come three mile er more without a stop
an' I guess we'd better rest a jiffy."

My legs ached and I was getting very sleepy. I re-
member the jolt of the basket as he rose, and hearing him
say, "Well, Uncle Eb, I guess we'd better be goinV*

Uncle Eb has told me since, that I tumbled out of
the basket once, and that he had a time of it getting me
in again, but I remember nothing more of that day's his-
tory.

When I woke in the morning, I could hear the crack-
ling of fire, and felt very warm and cozy wrapped in the
big shawl. I got a cheery greeting from Uncle Eb, who
was feeding the fire with a big heap of sticks that he had
piled together. Old Fred was licking my hands with his
rough tongue, and I suppose that is what waked me. Tea
was steeping in the little pot that hung over the fire, and
our breakfast of boiled eggs and bread and butter lay on
a paper beside it. I remember well the scene of our little
camp that morning. We had come to a strange country,
and there was no road in sight. A wooded hill lay back of
us, and, just before, ran a noisy little brook, winding be-
tween smooth banks, through a long pasture into a dense
wood. Behind a wall on the opposite shore a great field of
rustling corn filled a broad valley and stood higher than
a man's head.

While I went to wash my face in the clear water
Uncle Eb was husking some ears of corn that he took out

150 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

of his pocket, and had them roasting over the fire in a
moment. We ate heartily, giving Fred two big slices of
bread and butter, packing up with enough remaining for
another day. Breakfast over we doused the fire and Uncle
Eb put on his basket. He made after a squirrel, presently,
with old Fred, and brought him down out of a tree by
hurling stones at him and then the faithful follower of
our camp got a bit of meat for his breakfast. We climbed
the wall, as he ate, and buried ourselves in the deep corn.
The fragrant, silky tassels brushed my face and the corn
hissed at our intrusion, crossing its green sabers in our
path. Far in the field my companion heaped a little of the
soft earth for a pillow, spread the oilcloth between rows
and, as we lay down, drew the big shawl over us. Uncle
Eb was tired after the toil of that night and went asleep
almost as soon as he was down. Before I dropped off Fred
came and licked my face and stepped over me, his tail
wagging for leave, and curled upon the shawl at my feet. I
could see no sky in that gloomy green aisle of corn.

This going to bed in the morning seemed a foolish
business to me that day and I lay a long time looking up
at the rustling canopy overhead. I remember listening to
the waves that came whispering out of the further field,
nearer and nearer, until they swept over us with a roar-
ing swash of leaves, like that of water flooding among
rocks, as I have heard it often. A twinge of homesickness
came to me and the snoring of Uncle Eb gave me no com-
fort. I remember covering my head and crying softly as
I thought of those who had gone away and whom I was
to meet in a far country, called Heaven, whither we were
going. I forgot my sorrow, finally, in sleep. "When I awoke
it had grown dusk under the corn. I felt for Uncle Eb and
he was gone. Then I called to him.

: EBEN HOLDEN" 151

"Hush, boy! lie low," he whispered, bending over
me, a sharp look in his eye. " Traid they're after us."

He sat kneeling beside me, holding Fred by the col-
lar and listening. I could hear voices, the rustle of the corn
and the tramp of feet near by. It was thundering in the
distance that heavy, shaking thunder that seems to take
hold of the earth, and there were sounds in the corn like
the drawing of sabers and the rush of many feet. The
noisy thunder clouds came nearer and the voices that had
made us tremble were no longer heard. Uncle Eb began to
fasten the oil blanket to the stalks of corn for a shelter.
The rain came roaring over us. The sound of it was like
that of a host of cavalry coming at a gallop. We lay brac-
ing the stalks, the blanket tied above us and were quite dry
for a time. The rain rattled in the sounding sheaves and
then came flooding down the steep gutters. Above us beam
and rafter creaked, swaying, and showing glimpses of the
dark sky. The rain passed we could hear the last bat-
talion leaving the field and then the tumult ended as sud-
denly as it began. The corn trembled a few moments and
hushed to a faint whisper. We could hear only the drip
of rain drops leaking through the green roof. It was dark

under the corn.

/ -f /

There was my first day's work.
It was near five o'clock. My wife came into the room,
"Aren't you getting a little tired?" she asked.
"Come to think of it I guess I am," was my answer.
"I want to hear what you've written."
I read it to her. As I finished reading she came and
kissed me. In her eyes was indisputable evidence that she
had fallen in love with the boy and the old man. "We sat
down together. Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then

152 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

a curious kind of laughter fell upon us that ended with
her saying: "It's lovely. Let's go out for a walk."

We did and so Eben Holden had begun his career.

The second day's work I like as well as anything I
have written. Therefore I quote it here, omitting a few
details not quite necessary to the purpose of this chapter.

/ / /

He took a look at the sky after a while, and, re-
marking that he guessed they couldn't see his smoke now,
began to kindle the fire. As it burned up he stuck two
crotches and hung his tea pot on a stick that lay in them
so it took the heat of the flame, as I had seen him do in
the morning. Our grotto, in the corn, was shortly as cheer-
ful as any room in a palace, and our fire sent its light into
the long aisles that opened opposite, and nobody could see
the warm glow of it but ourselves.

"Well hev our supper," said Uncle Eb, as he opened
a paper and spread out the eggs and bread and butter and
crackers, "We'll jest hev our supper an' by 'n by when
everyone's abed we'll make tracks in the dirt, I can tell
ye."

Our supper over, Uncle Eb let me look at his tobacco-
k ox a shiny thing of German silver that always seemed
to snap out a quick farewell to me before it dove into his
pocket. He was very cheerful and communicative, and
joked a good deal as we lay there waiting in the fire light.
I got some further acquaintance with the swift, learning
among other things that it had no appetite for the pure
in heart.

"Why not?" I inquired.

"Well," said Uncle Eb, "it's like this: the meaner the
boy, the sweeter the meat."

I went asleep after awhile in spite of all, right in the

"EBEN HOLDEN" 153

middle of a story. The droning voice of Uncle Eb and the
feel of his hand upon my forehead called me back, blink-
ing, once or twice, but not for long. The fire was gone
down to a few embers when Uncle Eb woke me and the
grotto was lit only by a sprinkle of moonlight from above.

"Mos' twelve o'clock," he whispered. "Better be off."

The basket was on his back and he was all ready. I
followed him through the long aisle of corn, clinging to
the tail of his coat. The golden lantern of the moon hung
near the zenith and when we came out in the open we
could see into the far fields. I climbed into my basket at
the wall and as Uncle Eb carried me over the brook, stop-
ping on a fiat rock midway to take a drink, I could see
the sky in the water, and it seemed as if a misstep would
have tumbled me into the moon.

"Hear the crickets holler," said Uncle Eb, as he fol-
lowed the bank up into the open pasture.

"What makes 'em holler?" I asked.

"Oh, they're jes' filin' their saws an' thinkin'. Mebbe
tellin' o' what's happened 'em. Been a hard day fer them
little folks."

My eyes opened on a lovely scene at daylight. Uncle
Eb had laid me on a mossy knoll in a bit of timber and
through an opening right in front of us I could see a broad
level of shining water, and the great green mountain on
the further shore seemed to be up to its belly in the sea.

"Hello there!" said Uncle Eb; "here we are at Lake
Champlain."

I could hear the fire crackling and smell the odor of
steeping tea.

"Ye flopped 'round like a fish in thet basket," said
Uncle Eb. "Guess ye must a been dreamin* o' bears. Jumped
so ye scairt me. Didn't know but I had a wil' cat on my
shoulders."

IJ4 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Uncle Eb had taken a fish line out o his pocket
and was tying it to a rude pole that he had cut and trimmed
with his jack knife.

*Tve found some crawfish here," he said, "an' I'm
goin* t 5 try f er to git a bite on the p'int o' rocks there."

"Coin' t' git some fish, Uncle Eb?" I inquired.

"Wouldn't say't I was, er wouldn't say't I wasn't/ 3
he answered. "Jes goin' t' try."

Uncle Eb was always careful not to commit himself
on a doubtful point. He had fixed his hook and sinker in
a moment and then we went out on a rocky point near
by and threw off into the deep water. Suddenly Uncle
Eb gave a jerk that brought a groan out of him and then
let his hook go down again, his hands trembling, his face
severe.

"By mighty! Uncle Eb," he muttered to himself, "I
thought we hed him thet time."

He jerked again presently, and then I could see a
tug on the line that made me jump. A big fish came thrash-
ing into the air in a minute. He tried to swing it ashore,
but the pole bent and the fish got a fresh hold of the
water and took the end of the pole under. Uncle Eb
gave it a lift then that brought it ashore and a big slop
of water with it. I remember how the fish slapped me with
its wet tail and sprinkled my face shaking itself between
my boots. It was a big bass and in a little while we had
three of them. Uncle Eb dressed them and laid them over
the fire on a gridiron of green birch, salting them as they
cooked. I remember they went with a fine relish and the
last of our eggs and bread and butter went with them.

Our breakfast over, Uncle Eb made me promise to
stay with Fred and the basket while he went away to find
a man who could row us across. In about an hour I heard
a boat coming and the dog and I went out on the point

C 'EBEN HOLDEN" 155

o rocks where we saw Uncle Eb and another man, head-
ing for us, half over the cove. The bow bumped the rocks
beneath us in a minute. Then the stranger dropped his
oars and stood staring at me and the dog.

"Say, mister," said he presently, "can't go no further.
There's a reward offered f er you an* thet boy."

Uncle Eb called him aside and was talking to him a
long time.

I never knew what was said, but they came at last
and took us into the boat and the stranger was very
friendly.

When we had come near the landing on the "York
State" side, I remember he gave us our bearings.

"Keep t 9 the woods," he said, "till you're out o*
harm's way. Don't go near the stage road fer a while.
Yell find a store a little way up the mountain. Git yer
provisions there an' about eighty rod further on ye'll strike
the trail. It'll take ye over the mountain north an* t' Para-
dise road. Then take the white church on yer right shoul-
der an' go straight west."

I would not have remembered it so well but for the
fact that Uncle Eb wrote it all down in his account book
and that has helped me over many a slippery place in my
memory of those events. At the store we got some crackers
and cheese, tea and coffee, dried beef and herring, a bit
of honey and a loaf of bread that was sliced and buttered
before it was done up. . . .

"We hurried off on the trail and I remember Fred
looked very crestfallen with two big packages tied to his
collar. He delayed us a bit by trying to shake them off,
but Uncle Eb gave him a sharp word or two and then
he walked along very thoughtfully. . . .

In the deep woods he cut some boughs of hemlock,
growing near us, and spread them in a little hollow. That

156 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

done, we covered them with the oilcloth, and sat down
comfortably by the fire. Uncle Eb had a serious look and
was not inclined to talk or story telling. Before turning
in he asked me to kneel and say my prayer as I had done
every evening at the feet of my mother. I remember,
clearly, kneeling before my old companion and hearing
the echo o my small voice there in the dark and lonely
woods.

I remember too, and even more clearly, how he bent
his head and covered his eyes in that brief moment. I had
a great dread of darkness and imagined much evil of the
forest, but somehow I had no fear if he were near me.
When we had fixed the fire and lain down for the night
on the fragrant hemlock and covered ourselves with the
shawl. Uncle Eb lay on one side of me and old Fred on
the other, so I felt secure indeed.

The night had many voices there in the deep wood.
Away in the distance I could hear a strange, wild cry,
and I asked what it was and Uncle Eb whispered back,
te *s a loon/* Down the side of the mountain a shrill bark
rang in the timber and that was a fox, according to my
patient oracle. Anon we heard the crash and thunder of
a falling tree and a murmur that followed in the wake
of the last echo. . . .

My ears had gone deaf with drowsiness when a quick
stir in the body of Uncle Eb brought me back to my
senses. He was up on his elbow listening and the firelight
had sunk to a glimmer. Fred lay shivering and growling
beside me. I could hear no other sound.

"Be still/* said Uncle Eb, as he boxed the dog's ears.
Then he rose and began to stir the fire and lay on more
wood. As the flame leaped and threw its light into the
tree tops a shrill cry, like the scream of a frightened
woman, only louder and more terrible to hear, brought

EBEN HOLDEN IJ7

me to my feet crying. I knew the source of It was near
us and ran to Uncle Eb In a fearful panic.

"Hush, boy/' said he as it died away and went echo-
ing In the far forest, "I'll take care o* you. Don't be
scalrt. He's more 'fraid uv us than we are o* him. He's
makin' off now/'

We heard then a great crackling of dead brush on the
mountain above us. It grew fainter as we listened. In a
little while the woods were silent.

"It's the ol' man o' the woods," said Uncle Eb. "He's
out takin' a walk/'

"Will he hurt folks?" I inquired.

"Tow!" he answered, "jest as harmless as a kitten/*

[They got lost in the great forest and came upon some
honey bees. Uncle Eb knew that they were probably from
a clearing and used the art of the bee hunter in trailing
them. The travelers soon came to a stretch of sown land.]

We could see a log house in the clearing, and we
made for it as fast as our legs would carry us. We had a
mighty thirst and when we came to a little brook in the
meadow we lay down and drank and drank until we
were fairly grunting with fullness. Then we filled our
teapot and went on. Men were reaping with their cradles
In a field of grain and, as we neared the log house, a woman
came out in the dooryard and, lifting a big sea shell to
her lips, blew a blast that rushed over the clearing and
rang in the woods beyond it. A loud halloo came back
from the men.

We must have presented an evil aspect, for our
clothes were torn and we were both limping with fatigue.

Ij8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

The woman had a kindly face and, after looking at us a
moment, came and stooped before me and held my small
face in her hands turning it so she could look into my
eyes.

"You poor little critter," said she, "where you goin'?"

Uncle Eb told her something about my father and
mother being dead and our going west. Then she hugged
and kissed me and made me very miserable, I remember,
wetting my face with her tears, that were quite beyond
my comprehension,

"Jethro," said she, as the men came into the yard.
"I want ye t* look at this boy. Did ye ever see such a
cunnin' little critter? Jes* look at them bright eyes!" and
then she held me to her breast and nearly smothered me
and began to hum a bit of an old song.

"Yer full o* mother love," said her husband, as he sat
down on the grass a moment. "Lost her only baby, an 3 the
good Lord has sent no other. I swan, he has got purty eyes.
Jes* as blue as a May flower. Ain't ye hungry? Come right
in, both o* ye, an' set down t' the table with us."

They made room for us and we sat down between
the bare elbows of the hired men. I remember my eyes
came only to the top of the table. So the good woman
brought the family Bible and sitting on that firm founda-
tion I ate my dinner of salt pork and potatoes and milk
gravy a diet as grateful as it was familiar to my taste.

"Orphan, eh?" said the man of the house, looking
down at me.

"Orphan," Uncle Eb answered, nodding his head.

"God fearin* folks?"

"Best in the world," said Uncle Eb.

"Want t 5 bind 'im out?" the man asked.

"Couldn't spare *im," said Uncle Eb, decisively.

"Where ye goin'?"

HOLDEN** 159

Uncle Eb, hesitated, groping for an answer, I sup-
pose, that would do no violence to our mutual understand-
ing.

"Coin' t* heaven/ 5 I ventured to say presently an
answer that gave rise to conflicting emotions at the table.

"That's right/ 5 said Uncle Eb, turning to me and pat-
ting my head. "We're on the road t* heaven, I hope, an'
yell see it some day, sartin sure, if ye keep in the straight
road and be a good boy/*

After dinner the good woman took off my clothes
and put me in bed while she mended them. I went asleep
then and did not awake for a long time. When I got up
at last she brought a big basin of water and washed me
with such motherly tenderness in voice and manner that
I have never forgotten it. Uncle Eb lay sleeping on the
lounge and when she had finished dressing me, Fred and I
went out to play in the garden. It was supper time in a
little while and then, again, the woman winded the shell
and the men came up from the field. We sat down to eat
with them, as we had done at noon, and Uncle Eb con-
sented to spend the night after some urging. . . . One
man told about the ghost of Burnt Bridge . . *

"What's a ghost, Uncle Eb?" I whispered.

"Somethin* like a swift/* he answered, "but not so
powerf id. We heard a panther las* night/* he added, turn-
ing to our host. "Hollered like sin when he see the fire.**

"ScairtF* said the man o* the house, gaping. "That*s
what ailded him. I've lived twenty year on Paradise road
an* it was all woods when I put up the cabin. Seen deer
on the doorstep an* bears in the garden, an* panthers in
the fields. But I tell ye there's no critter so terrible as a
man. All the animals know *im how he roars, an* spits
fire an* smoke an* lead so it goes through a body er bites
off a leg, mebbe. Guess they'd made friends with me but

l6o FROM STORES OF MEMORY

them I didn't kill went away smarting with holes in 5 em.
An 5 I guess they told all their people 'bout me the ter-
rible critter that walked on its hind legs an 3 hed a white
face an* drew up an' spit 'is teeth into their vitals 'cross
a ten acre lot. An 5 purty soon they concluded they didn't
want t' hev no truck with me. They thought this clearin*
was the valley o' death an' they got awful cautious."

My second day's work was finished. In all my life
I have never known a better twenty minutes than those
I spent reading this bit of copy to my wife. We both felt
deeply the reality of these people of whom I had written
and at last we knew that we had found our way. What
it might mean to us we did not know but we were hap-
pier than we had ever been. The busy days that followed
were filled with the joy of discovery. No doubt many a
man would have done better with this big theme but my
humble talent was at last finding adequate expression.

Soon I was offered the Sunday editorship of the
New York World and my novel was put aside for more
than a year. I offered the chapters written to St. Nicholas
as the beginning of a serial. Its editor turned it down but
accepted another and a rather inferior tale which I offered.

One morning more than a year later I had to smile
when I met Mr. Gilder and Mr. Johnson, the distinguished
editors of Century Magazine, on Seventeenth Street. That
week Eben Holden had sold 105,000 copies. It was then
probably the most popular book in the English-speaking
world. Howells, Stedman, Mary Wilkins, John Hay, and
other influential folk had generously recognized its truth
as a picture of a time and a people.

Mr. Gilder said to me: "Why did you go to Boston
for a publisher?"

"EBEN HOLDEN" 161

I did not tell him. The truth would have done my
friend, the editor of St. Nicholas, no good for Mr. Gilder
also had charge of that magazine.

I was then writing D'ri and I, and soon Mr. Gilder
bought the serial rights for the Century.

I am often asked which of my characters I like the
best. I have thought much about it and I am inclined to
answer:

"Old D'ri."

16. MY NEXT NOVEL
The Contract for Which Changed My Plan of Life

BEFORE Eben Holden was quite finished, my editor, the
late Elbridge S. Brooks, came to me in New York. He
brought good news. He and the publishers were delighted
with the book now nearing its end. He gave it extrava-
gant praise. He wished me to make a contract for another
book and offered a handsome advance on royalties.

"Yes," I said, <e l have in mind a tale of the second
war with the British full of stirring adventure. I think
that it would have large sales. Eben Holden may not, for
it is mostly a realistic chronicle of peaceful country life."

The contract was signed. My three months of leave
from the World was in its last week. I had intended to go
back to my desk where Mr. Pulitzer had said that I would
be welcome. This new contract would have to end my
newspaper career, and it did. New things were ahead of
us, yet we were not overconfident.

I had bought a new typewriter and my wife had
learned how to use it. She had been copying the work of
each day as it came from my pen. Often she would come
to me laughing at some saying of Uncle Eb or deeply
moved by a bit of pathos like the death of the old dog.
It was apparent that the book was making a hit with her.
That fact was a help and, I am tempted to say, an inspira-
tion to me. The book came out in July. In the middle
autumn the great avalanche of sales began. Charles Froh-
man bought the dramatic rights for a Broadway produc-

162

MY NEXT NOVEL 163

tion. A big company tad made and was distributing bronze
plaques, containing these last words of Eben Holden:

"I ain't afraid.

'Shamed o' nuthin' I ever done.
Alwuss kep' my tugs tight,
Never swore 'less 'twas nec'sary,
Never ketched a fish bigger'n 't was
Er lied 'n a hoss trade
Er shed a tear I did n't hev to.
Never cheated anybody but Eben Holden.
Coin* off somewheres, Bill dunno the way nuther
Dunno 'f it's east er west er north er south,
Er road er trail;
But I ain't afraid."

I sat under the shade trees in the dooryard of my
friend Judge Hale, in Canton, through a number of lovely
summer days with a blank book in my lap and there
wrote the opening chapters of D'ri and L The work was
interrupted by visits to the library of the House of Com-
mons, in Ottawa, and that of the city of Ogdensburg
for a bit of research.

I omit the introduction and a few details in present-
ing my first day's work on the story of

"D'RI AND I"

After the war came hard times. My father had not
prospered handsomely, when, near the end of the summer
of 1803, he sold his stumpy farm, and we all started West,
over rough trails and roadways. There were seven of us,
bound for the valley of the St. Lawrence my father
and mother, my two sisters, my grandmother, D'ri, the
hired man, and myself, then a sturdy boy of ten. We
had an ox-team and -cart that carried our provision, the

164 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

sacred feather beds of my mother, the blankets and some
few other things.

We drove with us the first flock of sheep that ever
went West. There were forty of them, and they filled our
days with trouble. But for our faithful dog Rover, I fear
we should have lost heart and left them to the wolves.
The cart had a low cover of canvas, and my mother and
grandmother sat on the feather beds, and rode with small
comfort even where the roads were level. My father let me
carry my little pet rooster in a basket that hung from the
cart-axle when not in my keeping. The rooster had a
harder time than any of us, I fancy, for the days were
hot and the roads rough. ... He crowed triumphantly,
at times, in the hot basket, even when he was being tum-
bled about on the swamp ways. Nights I always found a
perch for him on the limb of a near tree, above the reach
of predatory creatures. Every morning, as the dawn showed
faintly in the tree-tops, he gave it a lusty cheer, flapping
his wings with all the seeming of delight. Then, often,
while the echo rang, I would open my eyes and watch the
light grow in the dusky cavern of the woods.

Those sheep were like as many thorns in our flesh that
day we made off in the deep woods from Lake Champlain.
Travel was new to them, and what with tearing through
thickets and running wild in every slash, they kept us
jumping. When they were leg- weary and used to travel,
they began to go quietly. We penned them at night with
a long rope looped around a number of trees.

D'ri was an odd character. He had his own way of
expressing the three degrees of wonder, admiration, and
surprise. "Jerushy!" accented on the second syllable
was the positive, "J eru shy Jane!" the comparative, and
"Jerushy Jane Pepper!" the superlative. Who that poor
lady might be I often wondered, but never ventured to

MY NEXT NOVEL 165

inquire. In times of stress I have heard him swear by
''Judas Priest/' but never more profanely. In his youth
he had been a sailor on the lake, when some artist of the
needle had tattooed a British jack on the back of his left
hand a thing he covered, of shame now, when he thought
of it. His right hand had lost its forefinger in a sawmill.
His rifle was distinguished by the name of Beeswax, "OP
Beeswax" he called it sometimes, for no better reason
than that it was "easy spoke an' hed a kind uv a powerful
soun' tew it." He had a nose like a shoemaker's thumb:
there was a deep incurve from its wide tip to his forehead.
He had a large, gray, inquiring eye and the watchful habit
of the woodsman. Somewhere in the midst of a story he
would pause and peer thoughtfully into the distance,
meanwhile feeling the pipe-stem with his lips, and then
resume the narrative as suddenly as he had stopped. He
was a lank and powerful man, six feet tall in his stockings.
He wore a thin beard that had the appearance of parched
grass on his ruddy countenance. In the matter of hair,
nature had treated him with a generosity most unusual.
His heavy shock was sheared off square above his neck.

That evening, as he lay on his elbow in the firelight,
D'ri had just entered the eventful field of reminiscence.
The women were washing the dishes; my father had gone
to the spring for water. D'ri pulled up suddenly, lifted
his hat of faded felt, and listened, peering into the dusk.

"Seems t' me them wolves is comin 5 nearer," he said
thoughtfully.

Their cries were echoing in the far timber. We all
rose and listened. In a moment my father came hurrying
back with his pail of water.

"D'ri," said he, quietly, as he threw some wood on
the fire, "they smell mutton. Mek the guns ready. We

l66 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

may git a few pelts. There's a big bounty on 'em here in
York State/'

We all stood about the fire listening as the wolves
came nearer.

"It's the sheep thet brings 'em/ 5 said my father.

"Quite a consid'able number on 'em, tew/' said D'ri,
as he stood cleaning the bore of his rifle.

My young sisters began to cry.

"Needn't be scairt," said father. "They won't come
very near."

"Tow-w-w!" said D'ri, with a laugh. "They'll be
apt t' stub ther toes 'fore they git very nigh us."

This did not quite agree with the tales he had previ-
ously been telling. I went for my sword, and buckled its
belt about me, the scabbard hanging to my heels. Presently
some creature came bounding over the brush. I saw him
break through the wall of darkness and stop quickly in
the firelight. Then D'ri brought him down with his rifle.
It was a deer.

"Started him up back there *n the woods a few
mild," said D'ri. "He was mekin' fer this 'ere pond
thet's what he was dewin'."

"What for?" I inquired.

" 'Cause fer the reason why he knowed he wouldn't
mek no tracks 'n the water, ner no scent," said D'ri, with
some show of contempt for my Ignorance.

The deer lay floundering in the briars some fifty feet
away. My father ran with his knife and put him quickly
out of misery. Then we hauled the carcass to clear
ground.

"Let it He where 'tis fer now," said he, as we came
back to the fire. Then he got our two big traps out of
the cart and set them beside the carcass and covered them
with leaves. The howling of the wolves had ceased. I

MY NEXT NOVEL 167

could hear only the creaking of a dead limb high above
us, and the bellow of frogs in the neat pond. We had
fastened the trap chains and were coming back to the fire,
when the dog rose, barking fiercely; then we heard the
crack of D'ri's rifle.

"Moreen fifty wolves eroun* here/' he whispered as
we ran up to him. "Never see sech a snag on 'em."

The sheep were stirring nervously. Near the pen a
wolf lay kicking where D'ri had dropped him.

"Rest on 'em snooked off when the gun hollered,"
he went on, whispering as before.

My mother and grandmother sat with my sisters in
the cart, hushing their murmurs of fear. Early in the
evening I had tied Rover to the cart-wheel, where he was
growling hotly, impatient of the leash.

"See?" said D'ri, pointing with his finger, "See 'em?
there'n the dark by thet air big hemlock."

We could make out a dim stir in the shadows where
he pointed. Presently we heard the spring and rattle of a
trap. As we turned that way, the other trap took hold
hard; as it sprang, we could hear a wolf yelp.

"Meks 'em holler," said D'ri, "thet ol' he-trap does,
when it teks holt. Stay here by the sheep, 'n' I'll go over
'n' give 'em somethin' fer spraint ankles."

Other wolves were swarming over the dead deer, and
the two in the traps were snarling and snapping at them.
My father and D'ri fired at the bunch, killing one of the
captives and another the largest wolf I ever saw. The
pack had slunk away as they heard the rifles. Our remain-
ing captive struggled to get free, but in a moment D'ri
had brained him with an axe. He and my father reset our
traps and hauled the dead wolves into the firelight. There
they began to skin them, for the bounty was ten dollars
for each in the new towns a sum that made our adven-

1 68 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

tare profitable. I built fires on the farther side of the
sheep, and, as they brightened, I could see, here and there,
the gleaming eyes of a wolf in the darkness. I was up all
night heaping wood upon the fires, while D'ri and my
father skinned the wolves and dressed the deer. I remem-
ber, as they worked, D'ri calmed himself with the low-
sung, familiar music of:

Li too rul I oorul I oorul I ay.

They had just finished when the cock crew.

"Holler, ye gol-dum little cuss!" D'ri shouted as he
went over to him. "Can't no snookin' wolf crack our
bones fer us. Peeled 'em thet's what we done tew 'em!
Judas Priest! He can peck a man's finger some, can't he?"

The light was coming, and he went off to the spring
for water, while I brought the spider and pots. The great,
green-roofed temple of the woods, that had so lately rung
with the howl of wolves, began to fill with far wandering
echoes of sweet song.

We were off at sunrise, on a road that grew rougher
every mile. At noon we came to a river so swollen as to
make a dangerous ford. After dinner my father waded
in, going hips under where the water was deep and swift.
Then he cut a long pole and took my mother on his
shoulders and entered the broad stream, steadying himself
with the pole. When she had got down safe on the other
side, he came back for grandmother and my sisters, and
took them over in the same way. D'ri, meanwhile, bound
up the feather beds and carried them on his head, leaving
the dog and me to tend the sheep. All our blankets and
clothing were carried across in the same manner. Then I
mounted the cart, with my rooster, lashing the oxen till
they took to the stream. They had tied the bell-wether to

MY NEXT NOVEL 169

the axle, and, as I started, men and dog drove the sheep
after me. The oxen wallowed in the deep water, and our
sheep, after some hesitation, began to swim. The big cart
floated like a raft part of the way, and we landed with no
great difficulty. Farther on, the road became nothing
better than a rude trail, where, frequently, we had to stop
and chop through heavy logs and roll them away.

. . . The fourth day after we left Chateaugay my
grandmother fell ill and died suddenly there in the deep
woods. We were far from any village, and sorrow slowed
our steps. We pushed on, coming soon to a sawmill and a
small settlement. They told us there was neither minister
nor undertaker within forty miles. My father and D'ri
made the coffin of planed lumber, and lined it with deer-
skin, and dug the grave on top of a high hill. When all
was ready, my father, who had always been much given
to profanity, albeit I know he was a kindly and honest
man with no irreverence in his heart, called D'ri aside,

"D'ri," said he, "ye've alwus been more properspoke
than I hev. Say a word o' prayer?"

"Don't much blieve I could," said he, thoughtfully.
C T hev been t' meeting but I hain't never been no great
hand fer prayin'."

tc 'Twouldn't sound right nohow fer me t* pray,"
said my father, "I got s' kind o' rough when I was in the
army."

ce Traid it'll come a leetle unhandy fer me," said
D'ri, with a look of embarrassment, "but I don't never
shirk a tough job ef it hes t' be done."

Then he stepped forward, took off his faded hat, his
brow wrinkling deep, and said, in a kind of preacher tone:
te O God, tek care o* gran'ma. Help us t' go on careful,
an* when we're riled, help us t' keep er mouths shet.

170 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

O God, help the ol* cart, an* the ex in pertlclar. An 3 don't
be noway hard on us. Amen."

I think that the most novel and striking adventures
in the book are that of the troop of British cavalry in the
dooryard of the hornet fancier, that in the slide of the
avengers in Upper Canada, and that in the thrilling battle
of Lake Erie.

The sales were for a time rather disappointing. Evi-
dently the crowd wanted from me another story of placid
country life and quaint character. D'ri was proclaimed
as another Leatherstocking and soon John Hay publicly
endorsed him, and large sales began. The book was not so
eagerly taken as Eben Holden but the sales went beyond
200,000 in about a year. It has been going out to the
public for many years. Yet it has never shown the vitality
of Eben Holden, which sells about a thousand a year
even now thirty-eight years after publication.

I went away to visit Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie
in Scotland immediately after D'ri was written, asking
the publishers to see that certain eighteenth century
French words be approved or changed by competent
authority. Nothing was done about it and some changes
were made in the plates after my return.

17. FIRST DRAFT OF "KEEPING UP
WITH LIZZIE"

ONE big thing in my time was the coming of the auto-
mobile. Its social effect was astonishing, for it started an
era of extravagance without precedent in the history of
America. It put fresh vigor into the old art of keeping up
that achieved its highest speed just before the great debacle
in 1929. I made a careful and profitable study of this re-
markable race. Here in a small compass is next to the
World War the most interesting drama of my time, be-
cause almost every family had a part in it. Keeping up
was, and still is, a universal habit.

The phrase was taken up by the comic sheets and the
Ford car was soon called a "tin Lizzie."

This is the form in which keeping up first drifted to
my beach. George Duneka, the literary manager of Harper
and Brothers told me that no short story printed by the
Monthly in his time had brought so many letters from its
readers. George Fitch hailed it as the best short story of
his time. It dramatizes that great change in the spirit of
America that came with the automobile.

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE

The Honorable Socrates Potter was the only "scien-
tific man" in the village of Fairview, Connecticut. In
every point of manhood he was far ahead of his neigh-
bors. In a way he had outstripped himself, for, while his
ideas were highly modern, he clung to the dress and
manners that prevailed in his youth. He wore broadcloth

171

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

every day and a white choker, and chewed tobacco, and
never permitted his work to interfere with the even tenor
of his conversation. He loved the old times and fashions,
and had a drawling tongue and often spoke in the dialect
of his fathers, loving the sound of it. His satirical moods
were sure to be flavored with clipped words and changed
tenses. The stranger often took him for a "hayseed, 35 but
on further acquaintance opened his mouth in astonish-
ment, for Soc. Potter, as many called him, was a man of
insight and learning and a quality of wit herein revealed.
He was at times an engineer, an attorney and counsellor,
and always a philosopher. He had an office over the store
of Samuel Henshaw, and made a specialty of deeds, titles,
epigrams, and witticisms.

He sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the
subject of extravagance. When he was doing business he
sat like other men, but when his thought assumed a degree
of elevation his feet rose with it. He began his story by
explaining that it was all true but the names.

"This is the balloon age," said he, with a merry
twinkle in his gray eyes. "The inventor has led us into
the skies. The odor of gasoline is in the path of the eagle.
Our thoughts are between earth and heaven; our prices
have followed our aspirations in the upward flight. Now
here is Sam Henshaw. Sam? Why, he's a merchant prince
o* Fairview grocery business had a girl name o' Liz-
zie smart and as purty as a wax doll. Dan Pettigrew, the
noblest flower o' the young manhood o* Fairview, fell in
love with her. No wonder. We were all fond o' Lizzie.
They were a han'some couple, an' together about half the
time.

"Well, Sam began to aspire, an' nothin* would do for
Lizzie but Miss Parmly's school at Hardcastle at seven
hundred dollars a year. So they rigged her up splendid, an*

"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 173

away she went. From that day she set the pace for this
community. Dan had to keep up with Lizzie, and so his
father, Bill Pettigrew, sent him to Harvard. Other girls
started In the race, an' the first we knew there was a big
field In this maiden handicap.

"Well, Sam had been aspirin' for about three months,
when he began to perspire. The extras up at Hardcastle
had exceeded his expectations. He was goin' a hot pace to
keep up with Lizzie, an' It looked as if his morals was
meltin' away.

"I was in the northern part o' the county one day,
an' saw some wonderful, big, red, tasty apples.

" 'What ye doin* with yer apples?' says I to the
grower.

" 'I've sent the most of 'em to Samuel Henshaw, o*
Fairview, an' he's sold 'em on commission,' says he.

" 'What do you get for 'em?' I asked.

" 'Two dollars an' ten cents a barrel,' says he.

"The next time I went into Sam's store there were
the same red apples that came out o' that orchard in the
northern part o' the county.

" 'How much are these apples?' I says.

" 'Seven dollars a barrel,' says Sam.

" 'Sam, ye're wastin' yer talents,' I says. 'You'd have
a better chance in Wall Street/

"Sam was kind o' shamefaced.

" 'It costs so much to live I have to make a big profit
somewhere,' says he. 'If you had a daughter to educate,
you'd know the reason.'

"I bought a bill o' goods, an' noticed that ham an'
butter were up two cents a pound an 3 flour four cents a
sack an' other things in proportion. I didn't say a word,
but I see that Sam proposed to tax the community for the
education o' that Lizzie girl. Folks began to complain, but

1/4 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

the tax on each wasn't heavy, an* a good many people
owed Sam an' wasn't in shape to quit him. Then Sam had
the best store in the village, an' everybody was kind o 3
proud of it. So we stood this assessment o 3 Sam's, an 3 by
a general tax paid for the education o' Lizzie. She made
friends an' sailed around in automobiles an' spent a part
o' the Christmas holidays with the daughter o 3 Mr. Bev-
erly Gottrich on Fifth Avenue, an' young Beverly Gott-
rich brought her home in his big, red runabout. Oh, that
was a great day in Fairview! that red runabout day of
our history when the pitcher was broken at the fountain
and they that looked out of the windows trembled.

"Dan Pettigrew was home from Harvard for the
holidays, an' he an' Lizzie met at a church party. They
held their heads very high, an' seemed to despise each
other an 3 everybody else. Word went around that it was
all off between 'em. It seems that they had riz-not risen,
but riz-far above each other.

"Now it often happens that when the young ascend
the tower o 3 their aspirations an 3 look down upon the
earth its average inhabitant seems no larger to them than
a red ant. Sometimes there's nobody in sight that is, no
real body nothin 3 but clouds an 3 rainbows an 3 kings and
queens an' their families. Now Lizzie an' Dan were both
up in their towers an' lookin 3 down, an 3 that was probably
the reason they didn't see each other.

"Right away a war began between the rival houses
o 3 Henshaw an' Pettigrew. The first we knew Sam was
buildin 3 a new house with a tower on it an 3 hardwood
finish inside an' half an acre in the dooryard. The tower
was for Lizzie. It signalized her rise in the community. It
put her one flight above anybody in Fairview.

"As the house rose, up went Sam's prices again. I
went over to the store an' bought a week's provisions, an 3

"'KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 175

when I got the bill I see that he'd taxed me twenty-nine
cents for his improvements.

"I met one o' my friends, an* I says to him, 'Wai,* I
says, 'Sam is goin' to make us pay for his new house an*
lot. Sam's ham is up two cents a pound, an* bacon, butter,
an' flour in proportion/

** 'Wai, what do ye expect?* says he. 'Lizzie is in high
society, an' he's got to keep up with her. Lizzie must have
a home proper to one o' her station. Don't be hard on
Sam.'

" 'I ain't,' I says. 'But Sam's house ought to be proper
to his station instead o* hers/

"I had just sat down in my office when Bill Pettigrew
came in Sam's great rival in the grocery an* aspiration
business. He'd bought a new automobile, an* wanted me
to draw a mortgage on his house an* lot for two thousand
dollars.

" 'You'd better go slow,* I says. 'It looks like bad
business to mortgage your home for an automobile/

" 'It's for the benefit o' my customers,* says he.

" 'Something purty for 'em to look at?* I asked.

" 'It will quicken deliveries,* says he.

" 'You can't afford it,* I says.

" 'Yes, I can,' says he. Tve put up prices twenty per
cent., an' it ain't a-goin* to bother me to pay for it/

" 'Oh, then your customers are goin* to pay for it!* I
says, 'an* you're only a guarantor/

" 'I wouldn't put it that way,* says he. 'It costs more
to live these days. Everything is goin' up/

" 'Includin* taxes,* I said to Bill, an* went to work an*
drew his mortgage for him, an* he got his automobile.

*Td intended to take my trade to his store, but when
I saw that he planned to tax the community for his
luxuries I changed my mind and went over to Eph Hill's.

1/6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

He kept the only other decent grocery-store in the vil-
lage. His prices were just about on a level with the others.

<e 'How do you explain it that prices have gone up
so?' I asked.

ct c Why, they say it's due to an overproduction o'
gold/ says he.

w "Looks to me like an overproduction o argument/
I says. "The old Earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry
year, an* the more she takes out o' her pockets the more I
have to take out o* mine/

tc c Wal, o' course I had to keep in line, so I put up
the prices o' my work a little to be in fashion. Everybody
kicked good an' plenty, an' nobody worse'n Sam an' Bill
an' Ephraim, but I told 'em how Fd read that there was
so much gold in the world it kind o' set me hanker in'.'

tc Ye know I had ten acres o' wornout land in the
edge o' the village, an' while others bought automobiles
an' such luxuries I invested in fertilizers an' hired a young
man out of an agricultural school an' went to f armin'.
Within a year I was raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vege-
tables that I needed, an' sellin' as much ag'in to my
neighbors.

""Well, Fairview under Lizzie was like Rome under
Theodora. The immorals o' the people throve an' grew.
As prices went up decency went down, an' wisdom rose
in value like meat an' flour. Seemed so everybody that had
a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought auto-
mobiles. They kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds
an' mortages an' surveyin' land an' searchin' titles, an' o'
course I prospered. More than half the population con-
verted property into cash an' cash into automobiles, piano-
players, foreign tours, vocal music, modern languages, an'
other forms of aspiration* They were puttin' it on each
other. Every man had a deep scheme for makin' the other

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE I//

feller pay for his fun. Reminds me o* that verse from
Zechariah > C I will show them no mercy, saith the Lord,
but I will deliver every man into the hand of his neigh-
bor/ Now the baron business has generally been lucrative,
but here in Fairview there was too much competition. We
were all barons. Everybody was taxin* everybody else for
his luxuries, an' nobody could save a cent nobody but
me an* Eph Hill. He didn't buy any automobile or build
a new house or send his girl to the seminary. He kept both
feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with
the rest. By an' by Eph had a mortgage on about half the
houses in the village. That showed what was the matter
with the other men.

"The merchants all got liver-complaint. There were
twenty men that I used to see walkin* home to their din-
ner every day or down to the post-office every evenin*.
But they didn't walk any more. They scud along in their
automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the whole
family around 'em. They looked as if they thought that
now, at last, they were keepin' up with Lizzie. Their
homes were empty most o' the time. The reading-
lamp was never lighted. There was no season of social
converse. Every merchant but Eph Hill grew fat an*
round, an' complained of indigestion an' sick-headache.
Sam looked like a moored balloon. Seemed so their morals
grew fat an 9 flabby an' shif 'less an* in need of exercise.
Their morals travelled too, but they travelled from mouth
to mouth, as ye might say, an' very fast. More'n half of
'em give up church an* went off on the country roads
every Sunday. All along the pike from Fairview to Jeru-
salem Corners ye could see where they'd laid humbly on
their backs in the dust, prayin' to a new god an* tryin*
to soften his heart with oil or open the gates o* mercy with
a monkey-wrench.

1/8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"BiH came into my shop one day an* looked as if he
hadn't a friend in the world. He wanted to borrow some
money.

" 'Money!* I says. 'What makes ye think I've got
money?'

" 'Because ye ain't got any automobile, 9 he says,
laughin*.

*' 'No/ I says. 'You bought one, an' that was all I
could afford.*

"He didn't git my p'int, an* went on: 'You're one
o* the few sensible men in this village. You live within
yer means, an* you ought to have money if ye ain't.*

" 'I've got a little, but I don*t see why you should
have it,* I says. 'You want me to do all the savin* for both
of us.*

" 'It costs so much to live I can't save a cent,* he says.
'You know Fve got a boy in college, an* it costs fearful.
I told my boy the other day how I worked my way
through school an* lived on a dollar a week in a little
room an* did my own washin'. He says to me, "Well,
Governor, you f ergit that I have a social position to main-

tain.*' '

" 'He*s right,* I says. 'You can't expect him to belong
to the Varsity crew an* the Dickey an* the Hasty-Puddin*
Club an* dress an* behave like the son of an ordinary grocer
in Fairview, Connecticut. Ye can't live on nuts an' raisins
an' be decent in such a position. Looks to me as if it would
require the combined incomes o* the grocer an' his lawyer
to maintain it. His position is likely to be hard on your
disposition* He's tryin' to keep up with Lizzie that's
what's the matter.*

*'For a moment Bill looked like a lost dog. I told him
how Grant an* Thomas stood on a hilltop one day an' seen
their men bein' mowed down like grass, an' by an* by

NG up WITH LIZZIE" 179

Thomas says to Grant, 'Wai, General, we'll have to move
back a little; It's too hot for the boys here/

" Tm *fraid your boy's position is kind of uncom-
f table/ I says.

" Til win out/ he says. 'My boy will marry an 5 settle
down in a year or so, then hell begin to help me/

" "But you may be killed oft before then/ I says.

" If my friends'll stand by me I'll pull through/
says he.

" 'But your friends have their own families to stand
by/ I says.

" 'Look here, Mr. Potter/ says he. 'You*ve no such
expense as I have. You're able to help me, an* you ought
to. I've got a note comin' due tomorrow an' no money to
pay it with/

" 'Retrench/ I says. 'Cut down your expenses an*
your prices/

" 'Can't/ says he. 'It costs too much to live. What'll
I do?'

" 'You ought to die/ I says, very mad.

" 'I can't/

" 'Why not?*

" 'It costs so much to die. Why, it takes a thousan*
dollars to give a man a decent funeral these days/

" 'Wai/ I says, 'every man has to prepare for his own
funeral. You've taxed the community for yer luxuries,
an* now ye want to tax me for yer notes. It's unjust dis-
crimination. It gives me a kind of a lonsome feeHn*. You
tell Dan to come an* see me. He needs advice more than
you need money, an* I've got a full line of It/

"Bill went away richer by a check for a hundred dol-
lars. Oh, I always know when Fm losin* money! I'm not
like other citizens o* Fairview.

"Dan came to see me the next Saturday night. He

ISO FROM STORES OF MEMORY

was a big, blue-eyed, handsome, good-natured boy, an'
dressed like the son of a millionaire. I brought him here to
the office, an* he sat down beside me.

" 'Dan,' I says, 'what are your plans for the future? 3

" 'I mean to be a lawyer/ says he.

<c 'Quit it,' I says.

' 'Why?'

*' "There are too many lawyers. We don't need any
more. They're devourin' our substance/

" 'What do you suggest?'

*' 'Be a real man. We're on the verge of a social revo-
lution. Boys have been leavin' the farms an' goin' into the
cities to be grand folks. The result is we have too many
grand folks an' too few real folks. The tide has turned.
Get aboard.'

" e l don't understand you.'

" 'America needs wheat an' corn more than it needs
arguments an' theories.'

"'Would you have me be a farmer?' he asked, in
surprise.

C "A farmer!' I says. 'It's a new business an exact
science these days. Think o* the high prices an' the cheap
land with its productiveness more than doubled by mod-
ern methods. The country is longin' for big, brainy men
to work its idle land. Soon we shall not produce enough
for our own needs/

" 'But Fm too well educated to be a farmer,' says he.

" 'Pardon me,' I says. 'The land'll soak up all the
education you've got an' yell for more. Its great need is
education. We've been sendin* the smart boys to the city
an' keepin' the fools on the farm. We've put everything
on the farm but brains. That's what's the matter with the
farm/

** 'But farming isn't dignified,' says Dan.

"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 181

'* Tardon me ag'in/ says I. 'It's more dignified to
search for the secrets o' God in the soil than to grope for
the secrets o' Satan in a lawsuit. Any fool can learn Black-
stone an* Kent an' Greenleaf , but the book o' law that's
writ in the soil is only for keen eyes/

" e l want a business that fits a gentleman/ says Dan.

" c An' the future farmer can be as much a gentleman
as Godll let him/

" 'How shall I go about it?' he says, half convinced.

" 'First stop tryin' to keep up with Lizzie/ says I.
"The way to beat Lizzie is to go toward the other end o*
the road. Ye see, you've dragged yer father into the race,
an' he's about winded. Turn around an' let Lizzie try to
keep up with you. Second, change yer base. Go to a school
of agriculture an' learn the business just as you'd go to a
school o' law or medicine. Begin modest. Live within yer
means. If you do right I'll buy you all the land ye want
an' start ye goin 3 .'

"When he left I knew that I'd won my case. In a
week or so he sent me a letter sayin' that he'd decided to
take my advice.

"He came to see me often after that. The first we
knew he was going with Marie Benson. Marie had a repu-
tation for good sense, but right away she began to take
after Lizzie, an' struck a tolerably good pace. Went to
New York to study music an' perfect herself in French,
If one has the money to do it, why, it's a good thing to
do but Marie's father was like the other fathers in hot
water half the time.

"I declare it seemed as if about every girl in the vil-
lage was tryin' to be a kind of a princess with a full-
jewelled brain. Not one in ten was willin', if she knew
how, to sweep a floor or cook a square meal. Their souls
were above it. Their feet were in Fairview an' their heads

182 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

in Dreamland. They talked o* the doin's o* the Four Hun-
dred an* the successes o' Lizzie. They trilled an* warbled;
they pounded the family piano; they golfed an 5 motored
an 3 whisted; they engaged in the titivation of toy dogs
an* the cultivation o* general debility; they ate caramels
an* chocolates enough to fill up a well; they complained;
they dreamed o* sunbursts an' tiaras while their papas
worried about notes an* bills; they lay on downy beds of
ease with the last best-seller, an* followed the fortunes of
the bold youth until he found his treasure at last in the
unhidden chest of the heroine; they created what we are
pleased to call the servant problem, which is really the
drone problem, caused by the added number who toil not,
but have to be toiled for; they grew in fat an* folly, but
not in grace an* wisdom- Some were both ox-eyed an*
peroxide. They studied the beauty columns,

tc Now the organs of the human body are just as shift-
less as the one that owns them. The systems o* these fair
ladies couldn't do their own work. The physician an* the
surgeon were added to the list o* their servants, an* became
as necessary as the cook an* the chambermaid. But they
were keepin* up with Lizzie. Poor things! They weren't
so much to blame. They thought their fathers were rich,
an* their fathers enjoyed an* clung to that reputation.
They hid their poverty an* flaunted the flag of opulence.

"It costs money, big money an* more, to produce a
generation of invalids. The papas o* Fairview had paid for
it with sweat an' toil an* broken health an* borrowed
money an* the usual tax added to the price o* their goods
or their labor. Suddenly one night the cashier o* the First
National Bank blew out his brains. We found that he had
stolen eighteen thousand dollars in the effort to keep up.
That was a lesson to the Lizzie-chasers! Why, sir, we
found that each of his girls had a diamond ring an* could

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 183

sing In three languages, an 5 the boy was In Yale College.
Poor man! he didn't steal for his own pleasure. Every-
thing went at auction house, grounds, rings, automobile.
Another man was caught sellin* under weight with fixed
scales, an' went to prison. Henry Brown failed, an* we
found that he had borrowed five hundred dollars from
John Bass, an* at the same time John Bass had borrowed
six hundred from Tom Rogers, an* Rogers had borrowed
seven hundred an* fifty from Sam Henshaw, an* Henshaw
had borrowed the same amount from Percival Smith, an*
Smith had got it from me. The chain broke, the note
structure fell like a house o* cards, an* I was the only
loser think o* that. There were five capitalists an* only
one man with real money.

"Sam Henshaw*s girl had graduated an* gone abroad
with her mother. One Sunday 'bout a year later, Sam flew
up to the door o* my house in his automobile. He lit on
the sidewalk an* struggled up the steps with two hundred
an* forty-seven pounds o* meat on him. He walked like a
man carryin* a barrel o* pork. He acted as if he was glad
to see me an* the big armchair on the piaz*.

" 'What's the news?* I asked.

" 'Lizzie an* her mother got back this morninV he
gasped. *They*ve been six months in Europe. Lizzie is in
love with it. She's hobnobbed with kings an* queens. She
talks art beautiful. I wish you'd come over an* hear her
hold a conversation. It's wonderful. She's goin* to be a
great addition to this community. She's got me faded an*
on the run. I ran down to the store for a few minutes this
mornin*, an* when I got back she says to me:

ec * "Father, you always smell o* ham an* mustard.
Have .you been in that disgusting store? Go an* take a
bahth at once.** Talks just like the English people she's

1 84 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

been among 'em so long. Get into my car an 5 I'll take ye
over an' fetch ye back/

"Sam regarded his humiliation with pride an' joy.
At last Lizzie had convinced him that her education had
paid. My curiosity was excited. I got in an 5 we flew over
to Sam's. Sam yelled up the stairway kind o' joyful as we
come in, an' his wife answered at the top o' the stairs an'
says:

tc 'Mr. Henshaw, I wish you wouldn't shout in this
house like a boy calling cows.*

"I guess she didn't know I was there. She ran up-
stairs an* back, an* then we turned into that splendid
parlor o' his an' set down. Purty soon Liz an' her mother
swung in an* smiled very pleasant an* shook hands an*
asked how was my family, etc., an' went right on talkin*.
I saw they didn't ask for the purpose of getting informa-
tion. Liz was dressed to kill an' purty as a picture cheeks
red as a rooster's comb an* waist like a hornet's. The cover
was off her showcase, an* there was a diamond sunburst
in the middle of it, an* the jewels were surrounded by
charms to which I am not wholly insensible even now.

tc <I wanted ye to tell Mr. Potter about yer travels,*
says Sam.

"Lizzie smiled an* looked out o* the window a minute
an* fetched a sigh an* struck out, lookin* like Deacon
Bristow the day he give ten dollars to the church. She
told about the cities an' the folks an' the weather in that
queer, English way she had o* talkin'.

tc Tell how ye hobnobbed with the Queen o' Italy,*
Sam says.

" 'Oh, father! Hobnobbed! 5 says she. "Anybody would
think that she and I had manicured each other's hands.
She only spoke a few words in Italian and looked very
gracious an* beautiful an' complimented my color.'

'"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE"

"Then she lay back in her chair, kind o* weary, an*
Sam asked me how was business just to fill in the gap, I
guess. Liz woke up an* showed how far she'd got ahead in
the race.

" 'Business!' says she, with animation. "That's why I
haven't any patience with American men. They never sit
down for ten minutes without talking business. Their
souls are steeped in commercialism. Don't you see how
absurd it is, father? There are plenty of lovely things to
talk about/

"Sam looked guilty, an* I felt sorry for him. It had
cost heavy to educate his girl up to a p'int where she could
give him so much advice an* information. He didn't say
a word. He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed
casket of erudition.

" 'You like Europe,' I says.

" 'I love it,' she says. "It's the only place to live. There
one finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and
so many cultivated people.*

"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an* had more sense than
any o' the others that tried to keep up with her. After all,
she was Sam's fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an* com-
mitted by his wife, as ye might say. She had made him
what he was.

ct 'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?* Lizzie asked.

" 'Yes,' I says. 'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.*

" 'A farmer!' says she, an* covered her face with her
handkerchief an' shook with merriment.

" 'Yes,' I says. 'Dan has come down out o* the air.
He's abandoned folly. He wants to do something to help
along.'

" 'Yes, of course,* says Lizzie, in a lofty manner. 'Dan
is really an excellent boy isn't he?'

"'Yes, an' he's livin* within his means that's the

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

first mile-stone in the road to success/ I says. Tm goin' to
buy him a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days
hell own it an 5 as much more. You wait. Hell have a
hundred men in his employ, an 5 flocks an' herds an' a
market of his own in New York. Hell control prices in
this county, an 5 they're goin' down. Hell be a force in
the State/

"They were all sitting up. The faces o' the Lady Hen-
shaw and her daughter turned red.

" Tm very glad to hear it, I'm sure/ said her Lady-
ship.

"I wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me,
was the milk in the cocoanut. I was joyful.

" 'Why, it's perfectly lovely!' says Lizzie, as she
fetched her pretty hands together in her lap.

" 'Yes, you want to cultivate Dan/ I says. 'He's a
man to be reckoned with.'

" 'Oh, indeed!' says her Ladyship.

" 'Yes, indeed!' I says, 'an' the girls are all after him.'

"I just guessed that. I knew it was unscrupulous, but
livin' here in this atmosphere does affect the morals even
of a lawyer. Lizzie grew red in the face.

" 'He could marry one o* the Four Hundred if he
wanted to/ I says. 'The other evening he was seen in the
big red touring-car of the Van Alstynes. What do you
think o' that?'

"Now that was true, but the chauffeur had been a
college friend o' Dan's, an 9 I didn't mention that.

"The Lady Henshaw rose with her chin in the air an'
strode out o' the room. She'd had enough. "Lizzie had a
dreamy smile in her face.

" 'Why, it's wonderful!' says she. 'I didn't know he'd
improved so.'

"I thought I'd gone far enough an' drew out o' the

''KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 187

game. Lizzie looked confident. She seemed to have some-
thing up her sleeve besides that lovely arm o' hers.

"I went home, an 3 two days later Sam looked me up
again. Then the secret came out o' the bag. He'd heard
that I had some money in the savings-banks over at Bridge-
port payin' me only three and a half per cent., an' he
wanted to borrow it an* pay me six per cent. His gen-
erosity surprised me. It was not like Sam.

" 'What's the matter with you?* I asked. 'Is it pos-
sible that your profits have all gone into gasoline an' rub-
ber an' silk an' education an' hardwood finish an' human
fat?'

" 'Well, it costs so much to live,' he says, 'an' the
wholesalers have kept lif tin' the prices on me. Now there's
the meat trust their prices are up thirty-five per cent/

" 'Of course,' I says, 'the directors have to have their
luxuries. You taxed us for your new house an' yer auto-
mobile an' yer daughter's education, an' they're taxin' you
for their steam-yachts an' private cars an' racin' stables.
You can't expect to do all the taxin'/

" Til come out all right,' he says. Tm goin' to raise
my whole schedule fifteen per cent.'

'"The people won't stand it they can't/ says I.
'You'll be drownin' the miller/

" 'It won't do 'em any good/ says he. 'Bill an' Eph
will make their prices agree with mine an' the rich folks,
they don't worry about prices. I pay a commission to
every steward an' butler in this neighborhood/

" 'I won't help you,' says L

" 'In a year from now I'll have money to burn/ he
says, 'For one thing, my daughter's education is finished,
an' that has cost heavy/

" 'How much would it cost to unlearn it?* I asked.
'That's goin* to cost more than it did to get it, I'm afraid.

188 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

In my opinion the first thing to do with her is to unedu-
cate her.'

"That was like a red-hot iron to Sam. It kind o' het
him up.

" 'Why, sir, you don't appreciate her,' says he. That
girl is far above us all here in Fairview. She's a queen.'

" "Well, Sain,' I says, "if there's anything you don't
need, just now, it's a queen. If I were you I wouldn't graft
that kind o' fruit on the grocery tree. Hams an' coronets
don't flourish on the same bush. They have a different
kind of a bouquet. They don't harmonize. Then, Sam,
what do you want of a girl that's far above ye? Is it any
comfort to you to be despised in your own house?'

" 'Mr. Potter, I haven't educated her for my own
home or for this community, but for higher things,' says
Sam.

w 'You hairy old ass! The first you know,' I says,
'they'll have your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for
a door-mat.'

"Sam started for the open air. I hated to be harsh
with him, but he needed some education himself, and it
took a beetle an' wedge to open his mind for it. He lifted
his chin so high that the fat swelled out on the back of
his neck an' unbuttoned his collar. Then he turned an*
said: c My daughter is too good for this town, an' I don't
intend that she shall stay here. She has been asked to marry
a man o' fortune in the old country/

** 'So I surmised, an' I suppose you find that the price
o' husbands has gone up,' I says.

''Sam didn't answer me.

" 'They want you to settle some money on the girl
don't they?' I asked.

" 'My wife says it's the custom in the old country/
says Sam.

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 189

" 'Suppose lie ain't worth the price? 5

" 'They say he's a splendid fellow/ says Sam.

" 'You let me investigate him/ I says, 'an' if he's
really worth the price 111 help ye to pay it.'

"Sam said- that was fair, an' thanked me for the
offer, an' gave me the young man's address. He was a Rus-
sian by the name of Alexander Rolanoff, an' Sam insisted
that he belonged to a very old family of large means an'
noble blood, an' said that the young man would be in
Fairview that summer. I wrote to the mayor of the city
in which he was said to live, but got no answer.

"Alexander came. He was a costly an' beautiful
young man, about thirty years old, with red cheeks an*
curly hair an' polished finger nails, an' wrote poetry.
Sometimes ye meet a man that excites yer worst suspi-
cions. Your right hand no sooner lets go o* his than it
slides down into your pocket to see if anything has hap-
pened; or maybe you take the arm o' yer wife or yer
daughter an' walk away. Aleck leaned a little in both di-
rections. But, sir, Sam didn't care to know my opinion of
him. Never said another word to me on the subject, but
came again to ask about the money.

" Took here, Sam/ I says. 'You tell Lizzie that I want
to talk with her at four o'clock in this office. If she really
wants to buy this man, I'll see what can be done about it/

" 'All right, you talk with her/ says he, an' went out.

"In a few minutes Dan showed up.

" 'Have you seen Lizzie?' says I.

" 'Not to speak to her/ says Dan. 'Looks fine, doesn't
she?'

" 'Beautiful!' I says. 'How is Marie Benson?'

" 'Oh, the second time I went to see her she was tryin*
to keep up with Lizzie/ says he. 'She's changed her gait.
Was going to New York after a lot o' new frills. I sup-

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

pose she thought I wanted a grand lady. That's the trouble
with all the girls here. There isn't one that has any sense.
A man might as well marry the real thing as an imita-
tion. I wish Lizzie would get down off her high horse/

" 'She's going to swap him for one with still longer
legs/ I says. "Lizzie is engaged to a gentleman o' fortune
in the old country/

"Dan's face began to stretch out as if it was made
of injy-rubber.

" 'It's too bad,' says he. 'Lizzie is a goodhearted girl,
if she is spoilt/

" Tine girl!' I says. 'An', Dan, I was in hopes that she
would discover her own folly before it was too late. But
she saw that others had begun to push her in the race an 5
that she had to let out another link or fall behind/

" 'Well, I wish her happiness/ says Dan, with a sigh.

" 'Go an' tell her so/ I says. 'Show her that you have
some care as to whether she lives or dies/

"I could see that his feelin's had been honed 'til they
were sharp as a razor.

" 'I've seen that fellow,' he says, 'an' he'll never marry
Lizzie if I can prevent it. I hate the looks of him. I shall
improve the first opportunity I have to insult him/

" 'That might be impossible/ I suggested.

" 'But I'll make the effort/ says Dan.

"As an insulter I wouldn't wonder if Dan had large
capacity when properly stirred up.

"'Well, anyhow, you don't want to fight a duel/
says I.

"'Oh, I wouldn't mind that a little!' Dan says. 'I
could make him look like thirty cents/

" 'Then you'd improve his appearance/ says I. 'Better
let him alone. I have lines out that will bring informa-
tion. Be patient/

"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE" 191

"Dan rose and said he would see me soon, an* left
with a rather stern look in his face.

"Lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed, We sat
down here all by ourselves.

" 'Lizzie,* I says, "why in the world did you go to
Europe for a husband? It's a slight to Fairview a dis-
couragement of home industry/

" 'There was nobody here that seemed to want me/
she says, blushin' very sweet.

"She had dropped her princess manner an* seemed to
be ready for straight talk.

" If that's so, Lizzie, it's your fault/ I says.

" C I don't understand you/ says she.

" 'Why, my dear child, it's this way/ I says. 'Your
mother an' father have meant well, but they've been
foolish. They've educated you for a millionairess, an* all
that's lackin' is the millions. You overawed the boys here
in Fairview. They thought that you felt above *em,
whether you did or not; an* the boys on Fifth Avenue
were glad to play with you, but they didn't care to marry
you. I say it kindly, Lizzie, an* I'm a friend o* yer father's,
an* you can afford to let me say what I mean. These young
fellows wanted the millions as well as the millionairess. One
of our boys fell in love with ye an' tried to keep up, but
your pace was too hot for him. His father got in trouble,
an* the boy had to drop out. Every well-born girl in the
village entered the race with ye. An era of extravagance
set in that threatened the solvency, the honor, o* this sober
old community. Their fathers had to borrow money to
keep a-goin'. They worked overtime, they importuned
their creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their
daughters revelled in the higher walks o* life an' sang in
different languages. Even your father I tell you in con-
fidence, for I suppose he wouldn't have the courage to do

192 FROM STORES QF MEMORY

it is in financial difficulties. Now, Lizzie, I want to be
kind to you, for I believe you're a good girl at heart, but
you ought to know that all this is what your accomplish-
ments have accomplished/

"She rose an' walked across the room, with trembling
lips. She had seized her parachute an' jumped from her
balloon and was slowly approaching the earth. I kept her
comin'. "These clothes an' jewels that you wear, Lizzie
these silks an' laces, these sunbursts an' solitaires, don't
seem to harmonize with your father's desire to borrow
money. Pardon me, but I can't make 'em look honest.
They seem to accuse you. They'd accuse me if I didn't
speak out plain to ye.'

"All of a sudden Lizzie dropped into a chair an'
began to cry. She had lit safely on the ground.

"It made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be.
Poor girl! I wanted to pick her up like a baby an' kiss her.
It wasn't that I loved Lizzie less but Rome more. She
wasn't to blame. Every spoilt woman stands for a fool-
man. Most of them need not a master but a frank
counsellor. I locked the door. She grew calm an' leaned
on my table, her face covered with her hands. My clock
shouted the seconds in the silence. Not a word was said
for two or three minutes.

" "I have been brutal,' I says, by an' by. Torgive me,'

* c 'Mr. Potter,' she says, 'you've done me a great kind-
ness. I'll never forget it. What shall I do?'

" 'Well, for one thing,' says I, "go back to your old
simplicity an' live within your means.'

" Til do it,' she says; "but I I supposed my father
was rich. Oh, I wish we could have had this talk before!'

" 'Did you know that Dan Pettigrew was in love
with you?' I put it straight from the shoulder. 'He
wouldn't dare tell ye, but you ought to know it. You are

"KEEPING up WITH LIZZIE" 193

regarded as a kind of a queen here, an 5 it's customary for
queens to be approached by ambassadors/

"Her face lighted up.

" 'In love with me?' she whispered. '"Why, Mr. Potter,
I never dreamed of such a thing. I thought he felt above
me. 3

" 'An' he thought you felt above him/ I says.

" "How absurd! how unfortunate!* she whispered. *I
couldn't marry him now if he asked me. This thing has
gone too far. I wouldn't treat any man that way.'

" 'You are engaged to Alexander, are you?' I says.

" 'Yes, we are to be married soon if if '

"She paused, and tears came to her eyes again.

" 'You are thinking o' the money,' says I.

" Tm thinking o' the money,' says she. 'It has been
promised to him. He will expect it.'

" 'Do you think he is an honest man? Will he treat
you well?'

" 'I'm sure of it.'

" 'Then let me talk with him. Perhaps he would take
you without anything to boot.'

" 'Please don't propose that,' says she. 'I think he's
getting the worst of it now. Mr. Potter, would you lend
me the money? J ask it because I don't want the family
to be disgraced or Mr. Rolanoff to be badly treated. He is
to invest the money in my name in a very promising ven-
ture. He says he can double it within three months.'

"It would have been easy for me to laugh, but I
didn't. Lizzie's attitude in the whole matter pleased me.
I saw that her heart was sound. I promised to have a talk
with her father and see her again. I looked into his affairs
carefully and put him on a new financial basis with a loan
of fifteen thousand dollars.

"One day he came around to my office with Alex-

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ander an' wanted me to draw up a contract between him
an 3 the young man. It was a rather crude proposition, an*
I laughed, an' Aleck sat with a bored smile on his face.

" 'Oh, if he's good enough for your daughter/ I said,
'his word ought to be good enough for you/

" 'That's all right/ says Sam, 'but business is business.
I want it down in black an' white that the income from
this money is to be paid to my daughter and that neither
o' them shall make any further demand on me/

"Well, I drew up that fool contract, an', after it was
signed, Sam delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the
young man, who was to become his son-in-law that eve-
ning at eight o'clock.

"Within half an hour Dan Pettigrew came roarin' up
in front o' my office in the big red automobile of his
father. In a minute he came in to see me. He out with his
business as soon as he lit in a chair.

" Tve learned that this man Rolanoff is a scoundrel/
says he.

" 'A scoundrel!' says I.

" "Of purest ray serene/ says he.

"I put a few questions, but he'd nothing in the way
o' proof to offer it was only the statement of a news-
paper.

" e ls that all you know against him?' I asked.

" 'He won't fight/ says Dan. Tve tried him I've
begged him to fight.'

" 'Well, I've got better evidence than you have/ I .
says. 'It came a few minutes before you did.'

"I showed him a cablegram from a London barrister
that said:

" 'Inquiry complete. The man is a pure adventurer,
character nil. 9

" 'We must act immediately/ says Dan.

KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE 195

" 'I have telephoned all over the village for Sam/ I
says. 'They say he's out in his car with Aleck an 3 Lizzie.
I asked them to send him here as soon as he returns/

" 'They're down on the Post Road. I met "em on my
way here/ says Dan. 'We can overtake that car easy. 5

"Well, the wedding hour was approaching an* Aleck
had the money, an 5 the thought occurred to me that he
might give 'em the slip somewhere on the road an' get
away with it. I left word in the store that if Sam got back
before I saw him he was to wait with Aleck in my office
until I returned, an 5 off we started like a baseball on its
way from the box to the catcher.

"An officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the
Post Road. He knew me.

" 'It's a case o' sickness/ I says, e an' we're after Sam
Henshaw.'

" 'He's gone down the road an 5 hasn't come back yet/
says the officer.

"I passed him a ten-dollar bill.

" 'Keep within sight of us/ I says. *We may need you
any minute. 3

"He nodded an' smiled, an* away we went.

" 'I'm wonderin' how we're a-goin' to get the money/
I says, havin' told Dan about it.

" 'I'll take it away from him/ says Dan.

" 'That wouldn't do/ says I.

" 'Why not?'

" 'Why not!' says I. 'You wouldn't want to be ar-
rested for highway robbery. Then too, we must think o'
Lizzie. Poor girl! It's a-goin' to be hard on her, anyhow.
I'll try a bluff. It's probable that he's worked this game
before. If so, we can rob him without violence an' let
him go.'

"Dan grew joyful as we sped along.

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

" 'Lizzie is mine/ he says. 'She wouldn't marry him
now.*

"He told me how fond they had been of each other
until they got accomplishments an' began to put up the
prices o' themselves. He said that in their own estimation
they had riz in value like beef an' ham, an' he confessed
how foolish he had been. We were excited an' movin'
fast.

" 'Somethin' '11 happen soon/ he says.

"An' it did, within ten minutes from date. "We could
see a blue car half a mile ahead.

" Til go by that ol' freight-car o' the Henshaws','
says Dan. 'They'll take after me, for Sam is vain of his
car. We can halt them in that narrow cut on the hill be-
yond the Byron River."

"We had rounded the turn at Chesterville, when we
saw the Henshaw car just ahead of us, with Aleck at the
wheel an' Lizzie beside him an' Sam on the back seat. I
saw the peril in the situation.

"The long rivalry between the houses of Henshaw
an' Pettigrew, reinforced by that of the young men, was
nearing its climax.

" 'See me go by that old soap-box o' the HenshawsY
says Dan, as he pulled to pass 'em.

"Then Dan an' Aleck began a duel with automobiles.
Each had a forty-horse-power engine in his hands with
which he was resolved to humble the other. Dan knew
that he was goin' to bring down the price o' Alecks an'
Henshaws. First we got ahead; then they scraped by us,
crumpling our fender on the nigh side. Lizzie an' I lost
our hats in the scrimmage. We gathered speed an' ripped
off a section o' their bulwarks, an' roared along neck an'
neck with 'em. The broken fenders rattled like drums in
a battle. I hung on. It seemed as if Fate was tryin' to halt

"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE " 197

us, but our horse-power was too high. A dog went under
us. It began to rain a little. We were a length ahead at
the turn by the Byron River. We swung for the bridge
an* skidded an* struck a telephone pole, an 3 I went right
on over the stone fence an* the clay bank an* lit on my
head in the water. Dan Pettigrew lit beside me. Then
came Lizzie an* Sam they fairly rained into the river.
I looked up to see if Aleck was comin*, but he wasn't. Sam
bein* so heavy, had stopped quicker an* hit in shallow
water near the shore, but, as luck would have it, the bot-
tom was soft an* he had come down feet foremost, an* a
broken leg an* some bad bruises were all he could boast
of. Lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt. Dan
an* I got *em out on the shore, an* left *em cryin* side by
side, an* scrambled up the bank to find Aleck. He had
aimed too low an* hit the wall, an* was dead as a herrin*
on the farther side of it. I removed the ten one-thousand-
dollar bills from his person to prevent complications an*
tenderly laid him down.

"I went back an* broke the sad news to our friends.
Sam blubbered. 'Education done it,* said he, as he mourn-
fully shook his head. 'These children have learnt more
kinds o* deviltry than they can ever unlearn. We ol* folks
ought to know better than try to go their pace/

" 'We knew better,* I says, 'but we had to keep up
with Lizzie.*

"Sam turned toward Lizzie an* moaned in a broken
voice, 'I wish it had killed me instead o* Alexander.*

" 'Why so?* I asked.

" 'It costs so much to live, 9 Sam sobbed, in a half-
hysterical way. Tve got an expensive family on my
hands.*

" 'You needn't be afraid o* havin* Lizzie on your
hands,' says Dan, who had the girl in his arms.

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

" "What do you mean? 5 Sam inquired.

" "She's on my hands an' she's goin' to stay there/ says
the young man. 'I'm in love with Lizzie myself. I've
always been in love with Lizzie and I'm going to offer a
Pettigrew for a Henshaw even.'

" 'Your offer is ill-timed,' says Lizzie, as she pulled
away an' tried to smooth her hair. "Let us go and do what
we can for poor Mr. Rolanoff.'

" 'Mr. Rolanoff hit the side o' the bridge and is dead/
I announced.

"Sam rolled over, his face red as a beet.

" The money/ he shouted. 'Get it quick.'

" 'Here it is!' I said, as I put the roll o' bills in his
hand.

" 'Poor Aleck!' he says, mournfully, as he counted
the money. 'It's awful hard on him.'

"I stopped a passing car, that took us all home.

"So the affair ended without disgrace to anyone, if
not without violence, and no one knows of the cablegram
save Dan an' me. But the price of Alecks took a big slump
in Fairview. No handsome foreign gent could marry any
one in this village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel.

"That was about the end o' keepin' up with Lizzie
in Fairview. Aleck, who had perished near the wire in that
race, was buried by Sam in the village cemetery, for he
had only seven dollars (an' twenty-three pawn tickets) on
his person, all of which was claimed by a lady with
bleached hair, who proved to my satisfaction that she was
his wife an' his main dependence in time o' need.

"Lizzie went to work in her father's store, an' the
whole gang o' Lizzie-chasers had to change their gait
again. She organized our prosperous young ladies' club
a model of its kind the purpose of which is the promo-
tion of simple livin' and a taste for useful work. Every

"KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE ** 199

Thaaksgivin* Day they hold a big fair in one o* the
churches, an* I distribute a hundred dollars in cash
prizes for the best exhibits o* pumpkin pie, chicken pie,
bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain an* fancy sewing
an* so on. One by one the girls have joined an* gone to
work, an* every one o* the old set is either married or
engaged an* they*re all healthy an* happy, an* the servant
problem is solved.

"In a few days the story came to its climax. Dan an*
Lizzie came into my office together.

" 'Mr. Potter,* says Dan, with a happy smile on his
face, 'we're goin* to be married next month.*

"Before I could say a word he had gathered Lizzie up
in his arms an* kissed her, an* she countered with a loud
smack.

" 'You silly man,' she says, 'you could have had me
long ago.*

" 'If Fd only V known it,* he says.

" 'Oh, the ignorance o* some men!* she says, lookin*
into his eyes.

" "It exceeds the penetration o* some women,' I says.

"They came together ag*in quite spiteful. I separated
*em.

" 'Quit,' I says. 'Stop pickin* on each other. It pro-
vokes me. I'm goin' to give a prize for the simplest wed-
ding that ever took place in Fairview,* I says. 'It will be
five hundred dollars in gold for the bride. Don't miss it.'

" 'The marriage will occur at noon,'* says Lizzie.
'There'll be nothing but simple morning frocks. The girls
can wear calico if they wish. No jewels, no laces, no
elaborate breakfast.*

" 'An* no presents, but mine, that cost over five dol-
lars each,' I says.

"An' that's the way it was.*'

18. MY LOST NOVEL

ALWAYS my home has been as beautiful as my taste and
means would allow me to make It* Thrushwood overlook-
ing the Sound In a part of Greenwich called Riverside
was an inspiration to me and to my wife and friends.
There I knew the old hospitalities of nature and Its lavish
appeal to me in color, sound, shadow, and fragrance. The
approach led through a small forest floored in early sum-
mer with ferns and blooming wild geraniums while the
air above them was filled with the halted snow of the
dogwood trees. Often Its color was enriched by the flash-
ing wings of the scarlet tanager. But above all I loved
Its silences, broken by the plaintive calling of the wood
thrush.

We could look far from our lawns and windows over
green slopes and shining waters. Always a water view
has been important to me. There I could see across a quiet
bay leading out to sea and beyond it the distant shore
of Long Island. The bay was filled at sunset with the
shadows of sails and islands and the vivid colors of the
sky. As the night fell one saw in it the gold of moon and
star and lantern light.

Often In the evening great men sat at my fireside and
neighbors dropped in to hear them talk. Owen Young told
us of journeys in China and Japan. Lawrence Abbott
of his intimate acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt,
General Greely of his quest for the North Pole, A. Barton
Hepburn of his lion hunt in Africa, Job Hedges of his
adventures as a campaigner, Alexander "Woollcott of his

200

MY LOST NOVEL 2OI

work at the battle front in the World War. What excit-
ing stories of danger by sea and land we heard!

My life has never been in peril by fire, but fire
ate up a novel and a year's work for me.

It took better things, the loss of which has been hard
to bear, so my regret for the novel has been compara-
tively slight. Perhaps, after all, it were better lost. It was
a tale of the mountains of western North Carolina in a
valley of which I had spent three winters. Its title was

The Tower of a Hundred Bells

I had destroyed the notes and the first drafts to
which I had given myself unsparingly for many months.
It was at last typed in two perfect copies that lay on
my study table at the west end of the second floor of
the house. I was going to town next day to take one
copy to my publisher and the other to my safe.

With a sense of relief that the task was at last off
my hands I went to New Jersey with my friends Alex-
ander Grosset and George Doran for a game of golf with
Governor Griggs. Coming home in the darkness soon after
eight o'clock, I was greeted by a neighbor on the sta-
tion platform.

"Probably you do not know that your house is
afire," he said. "The family is all right. Get into my car."

The flaming house was surrounded by the local fire
companies and many sympathetic neighbors. The most of
our treasures lay on the lawns and garden paths. Many
were the food of the leaping flames. My wife had had a
great love of beauty and a rare art in creating it. There
was a kind of magic in her hands. Her gift had made that
home a delightful and beloved refuge. The shock of see-
ing it spoiled broke her health. There was the great loss.
I did not then give a moment's thought to the novel.

202 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

It was a tale of the red-blooded mountain folk whose
character and dialect I had studied with much care. My
hero had a remarkable voice. He could imitate all the
beasts and birds of the mountain country and the voices
of men. This led to interesting complications in the de-
velopment of my mystery.

It was in 1916 that I wrote this novel of the Great
Smoky Mountains. I brought a mountain woman, who
had never ridden on the cars, to my home in the North,
and made a careful study of her life and dialect. I think
she was the greatest person I have known. This I write
with no hesitation, because of her faith, her kindness, her
charity, her cheerfulness in the midst of misfortunes that
might well have utterly broken the spirit.

Just lately I have discovered these notes that relate
to her wooing and her early married life. They are, I
think, too good to be lost. They give one a notion of the
truth and vividness of the lost novel and here they are:

At our next meeting Mrs. Gentry sat with her sew-
ing on the little shaded verandah while she told me the
story of her life.

"I were twelve when pappy moved from Wautauga
into Madison County. Tuk everythin' in a big covered
wagon. Me an' my brother druv the cows an' milked 'em
into stone jugs. When evenin' come we'd stop where they
were water an' boil some corn meal an' have a milk an'
mush supper an' then pappy would play on his fiddle. He
had a sister in Madison County an' when we got to Aunt
Elly's, Shed Gentry were thar an' he holped us unload.
He were a long, gawky feller 'bout fifteen yur old. They
were somethin' quare 'bout one o' his fingers kindly split
like. He looked terrible homely to me.

"That same yur, one day, pappy come home an' the

MY LOST NOVEL 2O3

horse done kicked the barn down on top o' him an' killed
him. I were erway to one o' the neighbors. Their chil-
dren had some play purtys that had been sent, an* I
were lookin' at their purty things an 3 fussin' with them.
Never played no more in all my life.

"Mammy couldn't do no work much a'ter that. I
had to spin eround an' take the load an' be mother to
the little uns. 'Twere hard on me, an' mammy as cross
as a crow in a cage. I would go off in the woods an 3 hide
an' jist cry an' cry. One day Shed, he were thar, an* he
seed me go off in the woods, an' he follered me an' he
cried too, an' said he'd holp me. An' he told me how they
pecked on him an' bothered him over to his house. Some-
times he'd slip over an' holp me with my washin'. Lord
o' mercy! how I loved that a boy a'ter that. I were
thinkin' a'ter him an' worryin' a'ter him night an' day.

"I had learnt myself to read so's I could read the
Bible a little bit, an' that winter they built a log school-
house an' I went to school tew weeks. We studied the
Bible an' the ol' blue-back spellin' book an* I got so I
could spell powerful good f er a mount'in girl. I could jist
wade right through the whole crowd, all but Shed Gen-
try nobody could spell like him.

"I never talked to no boy much. Onct when Bill
Agers' boy come an' asked me to go to meetin' with him,
I had a dish o' coffee to grind up, an' I were so skeered I
swallered a button, an' what I done with the coffee I
never did know never twil this day.

tc Onct when I went to the neighbors an' borryed a
gourd o' soap an' were walkin' home with it, I seed Bill
Henline come runnin' to ketch up with me. I run like
a skeered b'ar, an' kept out o' his way, I were so ershamed
to have him see me with a gourd o' soap in my hands. He
wouldn't 'a' ketched me ef he'd a been a horse. He thought

204 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

'twere 'cause I hated him, but I didn't. I only hated the
soap,

"When I went to school or church. Shed would al-
ways jump out o' the bushes somewhar, an' come hoppin 3
a'ter me, an' tellin' me erbout his troubles, fer his pappy
pecked him awful, an' his brother Bob were turrible mean
to him.

"Onct when I were fourteen there were goin' to be
a spellin'-school an' Shed were goin' to spell ag'in me. He
met me in the road an' had an apple in his hand, an' I
says:

" Tm mad at you.'

'Why?' says he.

tc * 'Cause you're goin' to spell ag'in me/

w 'Ef you'll take this apple an' won't be mad, I'll
let you spell me down,' says he.

" "All right,' I says, an' my face got as hot as a
smokin' griddle.

"Onct upon a time, an 5 hits as true as God's word,
he come over to our house one day an' said he'd git mar-
ried ef he could find anybody that were fool ernough to
marry him.

"I were jist a little over fifteen yur old. I were kindly
skeered, an' poured a dipper o' water all over the stove.
A few days a'ter that I went to git mammy's spinnin'-
wheel over to a neighbor's. The snow were half a leg deep,
an' I were luggin' that ol' wheel erlong an' hit bore down
heavy. I got erbout halfways home, an' I seed Shed
a-comin'. I felt awful ershamed to have him see me lug-
gin' that ol' wheel, an' I allowed I'd put hit over the
fence an' go ercrost the fields, so as I wouldn't meet him.
I were tard an' I tried to lift hit over, but 'twere too
heavy. Then I seed him come runnin' an' I jist stood thar
an' cried. He come up to me an' says:

MY LOST NOVEL 2OJ

be you a-doin'?*

" 'Takin* this wheel home/

" 'Let me holp you/

"He lifted hit over the fence. Then he leaned ag'in
a rail an 3 tuk my hand, an' I looked erway to Larl Moun-
t'in.

" 'Do you 'member what I said th* other day? 5 says
he.

" 'No, I don't 'member/ says I. "What did you say?*

" 'That I were ergoin* to git married, an' go erway
over to Marshall an' take up some land/ says he. 'Jane,
I want you to go. I jist want you to go with me. Will
you?'

" 'Course I will,' says L

"He weren't purty jist a big mount'in huger, but
my! I did love him, an' when he drawed me up erg'in
him an' kissed me I were jist choked with happiness, an*
they couldn't make me cross a'ter that.

"Next day we walked by his house together, an*
the children all stood out in front an* hollered an* yelled
at us.

" 'There goes Shed an* his sugar honey,* says they.
'Coin* to be married goin* to be married.'

"I never was so ershamed in all my life.

"Shed told his people that he were goin' to git mar-
ried an* his mammy cut an outdacious swell erbout hit.
'What be you ergoin' to do with her she ain't nothin* but
a child,* says she.

"Mammy, she didn't want me to marry, but my
brother were twelve yur old an* my sister were thirteen,
an* I allowed *twere time fer them to take my place,
an* I told them I wouldn't stay thar no longer.

"Well, we got married an* nex* day we tuk a honey-
moon walk o* twenty-five mile to Marshall, an* 'twere

206 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

rainin' hard when we got thar late in the evening an 3 we
were wet so our shoes sucked, an' our clothes they felt
like as if they bin soaked in a tub.

" Tore we got thar we sot down by the road to
rest, soppin' wet but awful happy. He kissed me an'
says:

" 'Be you happy?'

" 'Only one thing could make me ary bit happier/ I
says.

" 'What's that?' he says.

" 'A weddin' ring/ says L

" 'You cain have it, honey/ he says, an' he done
bought hit for me that night, an' I'm er-wahrin' hit right
now."

She pointed to her ring, worn to a mere thread of
gold, on her finger.

"When we got back Shed hared some land an' went
to work buildin' a pole cabin. Jist little logs 'twere made
of. You could V picked a dog up by the tail an' throwed
him out o' the chimley, it were so low an' big. I could set
my chair in the hearth an' look out the top o' hit. By the
next meal he had us a little table an' a stool so we both
set to the table nex' time. We lived thar three yur an'
made tobaccer. We had one ol' bed, back in the corner,
an' it had jist one leg on hit. If anyone come over when
he were erway I hid under that bed. I jist saved every
feather an' put 'em in a poke that hung by the stove.

"Then we begun cl'arin' new ground on the slick
mount'in side an' raisin' tobaccer."

"Did you use tobacco?" I asked.

"No, I never used tobaccer," she went on. "Every
one o' the family used tobaccer an' I had dyspepsey an'
were a pore, lean, yeller-lookin' thing. Mammy always
claimed that hit were 'cause I did not use tobaccer. If

MY LOST NOVEL 2OJ

Fd use tobaccer I'd be as strong as the other children.
Mammy were that bad a'ter tobaccer that if they want
none in the house she'd be lookin' out o' the door every five
minutes to see ef somebody were comin' who could give her
a chaw. Down thar all the girls spit amber 'fore they was
ten yur old but me.

"A'ter I were married I got sick an' they'd ask
me, my mammy an' the neighbors would, why I didn't use
tobaccer, an' said I would be strong like the rest o' them,
if I would.

"I said: *No, I be too nice a womern to use that filthy
stuff. I tried but I got as sick as an ol* buzzard/ "

"Could you save any money?" I asked.

"Never see no money," said she. "Saved everything
else or I reckon we'd 'a' starved. Scratched up every feather
for my beds. Got the habit o' savin'. All summer Fd
kindly scratch up the sunlight an' save hit for the dark
days. Hit come handy when the children all got the measles
to onct an' I got hit too. Holped me to take keer o* them
an* do the work. Holped me when one had the tyford
fever. I had to give her a teaspoonful o' milk every five
minutes. When Fd go to sleep in the night the spoon
would drop out o' my hand on to the floor an' wake
me an' tell me to 'tend to my work.

"Men and women used to come to me to have the
blues took off of 3 em, an' Fd jist show *em how they ought
to be thankful. They always come a'ter me when they
was sick.

"Fd find *em crowded into a little room, eround
some un burnin* up with fever, moanin' an' wringin' their
hands an' skeerin' the sick un, an' breathin* up the air.
I'd drive 'em all out o' the house, an* open the door an*
windows an* when the sick were half dead I've pulled

208 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

'em up the slant, with jist air an 5 norushment an' cheerful
talk.

"Now that were a neighbor girl. One day she an 5 her
brothers were rollin' logs, an' they left her to chunk up
some small logs on the log heaps, an' in the a'ternoon
they heard her singin', that was, they thought she were
singin'. They went round to whar she were, an' she were
cryin'.

"They says: "What's the matter, honey?'

"She says: *I got a pain in my hip.'

"They took her up an' carried her down to the house
an' her mother sent for me. For six months that child
were never out o' her chair 'cept as two people were by
her to holp her. Then her hip bu'sted an' a'ter hit bu'sted
she wanted to be put on the bed, but she couldn't b'ar
to lay stilL Well, we stood right over that child for seven
months more, night an' day, an' I don't have no idee
that she lay quiet five minutes at one time durin' that
seven months. We jist turned her back an' fo'th.

"Well, a'ter hit busted, her leg perished down.

"Erbout the end of that seven months the doctor
come thar an' brought another doctor with him to hold
a consul' over this child. He said thar were some kind o'
worm eatin' up the marrer o' her bones. He were erbout
to give up hopes. She were beggin' her father an' me
for a little winter-John apple. The father promised her
he would ask the doctor an' if he said so, they would
give hit to her.

"She thought her father wasn't goin' to ask, an' she
looked up to me an' says: 'Will you ask?' an' I said I
would.

"Her father followed the doctor out to the door, an'
I tuk the apple an' went out. An* I says to the doctor:

MY LOST NOVEL 209

"Do you think *t will hurt Betty for me to give her this
little green apple. 5

"He says: 'They is no hopes expected for her. You
give her ary thing in the world that she wants. 9 An*
he looked at her father an' said: 'The child cain't live.
Every nerve that is in her j'ints has rotted, an' she cain't
last long/

"Her mother said for me to scrape the apple, an* she
said she would go an' cook a chicken for her. She said
she had been beggin' for chicken. The child had lain thar
thirteen months.

"I went in an' set down an' she said: 'What did the
doctor say?'

"I says: 'You cain have one bite o* this apple an'
ef hit don't hurt you, in a short time you shall have an-
other bite/

"So I scraped her one bite and give her ernother bite
an' said ef hit didn't hurt her, I would give her more in
two hours. Her mother cooked the chicken.

"They was goin' to let her eat the whole chicken an 5
drink the broth, I knowed she'd be plum foundered.

"Now the girl seed they was skeered erbout her an 3
said: 'Did the doctor say they were not much chanct
o' me livin'?'

"Her father an' mother looked at her an' says: 'They
were not much chanct/ An' asked her ef she felt ready
to die.

"She said that she wasn't preparrd an* wanted that
they should send down for the minister to come up an'
pray for her. She had faith that ef we all prayed earnest
to God, she'd git well, or have time to be preparrd. So
all the people as could pray or would pray was sent for
an' all come, an' some of us waited on the girl an* turned
her an' fed her, but at the same time somebody was on

210 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

their knees prayin' for her all that day. We prayed an'
prayed an 3 prayed twil our tongues was slick but, I reckon,
the chicken an' the little winter-John apple prayed the
best of any of us. An' she begun to get better from that

time.

had nine children. Sunday mornin' Fd git up
early an' milk an' git breakfast an* git the children ready.
Then we'd leg it to Sunday School three mile erway. At
nine we was thar. Got home in time to git dinner. The
sun would be hot on the little uns comin' back. Make
their faces plum sore. Sometimes we'd have to pick up
the littlest uns an' carry 'em g'in we got home. If I were
alone I'd be totin' three all to onct part o' the way.

"A'ter awhile my sister broke down an' I tuk her
five children g'in she got better which she never done an'
brought 'em up. My brother died o' tyford fever an' I tuk
his babies three on 'em an' brought them up too. Good
land, mister! when the las' baby walked out o' my arms
an' I were shet of 'em forever I felt kindly cold an' lone-
some an' was shamed to see folks; seemed as though my
breast ought to be covered by a baby when anybody come
to the door. Babies be sech good company. Ye don't git
lonesome with 'em. Ye kin learn 'em real young to know
when you're funnin' with 'em er teasin' er sorrowful. An*
ye kin visit with 'em. Ye don't know what heaven is,
honey, twil ye've held hit in yer arms years an' years as
I done."

Here was a woman whose charity had been equal
to all demands upon it. Her little home had been crowded
with her own children and yet she had made room in it
for eight others.

"No, sir, never lost a child o' the hull nine," she
went on. "One day my littlest boy were clombin' a log
fence an' pulled the top log down on him an' smashed his

MY LOST NOVEL 211

leg jist below the hip. Oh, what a night I had! Gritted my
teeth together an' held the little feller in my arms an' he
yellin' like a painter g'in the doctor would come. Tuk
fourteen hours to git him thar but he tinkered that leg
up an 3 saved hit.

"Six o' the children had the measles all to onct an 5
I had it tew but I kept eround an' done all the work o'
the house. Cyarded an' spun an* wove an' made clothes
f er the family an' done the washin' an' mendin' an' cookin'
an' whatever other else there was to be did.

"Often in plantin' or hoein' time pappy an' me ud
work all night together on the cove 'bout' the only
chanct we had to visit like we used to done. We'd have
our suppers at midnight an' go back an' scratch eround
on the mount'in an' talk twil daylight come an' the babies
'gun to holler fer breakfast. Nex' day I'd be kindly
tard I would. Sometimes I lay down on the bed twil
I'd see some little feller come in with holes in his breeches.
Then I'd clomb out an' pray an' go to work ag'in.
When we needed hit, I'd leave the babies with pappy
an' go off to mill with half a bushel o' corn two an'
a half miles an' back. Kindly enjoyed hit on a purty
day hit were so still an' nice in the woods. Rested
me. Pappy could watch the babies an' scratch eround with
his hoe. They missed me dreadful when I got gone, an'
the babies would holler lonesome pappy said and oh
how I loved to get back!"

"Have you used the whip much in bringing up your
children?" I asked.

"No. Mammy were always peckin' me over the head
with a stick. She were turrible ill an' cross. I were that
foundered with the peckin' that I declar'd I never would
whip if God sent me children."

"What kind of food did you give them to eat?"

212 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"Mount'in children got nothin' to eat but meat skins
boiled up with onions an* potaters but they done growed
big an' fat. They could jest mortally dew the work
them mountain hugers. Meat skins? They was the skins
off of pork an' bacon an* hams."

"Tell me more about your life in the mountains?"
I urged.

"One child been awful nigh to me always, and *t
were due to an accident" she went on. "Plantin 9 time I
used to go and holp pappy clean up the slick mountain
side. Many 's the time we worked all night together on
them slants.

"Well, 'twere plantin' time and the rain crow were
singin' purty. We cut a round o' bark off a tree and put
the baby in it. 'Twere a kind of a cradle and she went to
sleep in it. The sun crimped the green bark tight on my
baby and she rolled down that steep mountain and we
found her way below us in a bunch o' br'ars.

"One evening a'ter meetin', I says to Aunt Tildy:

" 'Will you take a walk with me in the mornin'?' I
says.

" 'Whar to?' says she.

" "Oh jist 'round an' 'round/ says I.

"I went down next mornin' to her house. They were
a big skif t o' snow on the ground. I give her a stick an*
I had one myself. We started out an* walked a little ways.
Then I says:

" 'Thar be a wild still up hur in the mountains. I
want you to holp me hunt hit. I cain't git none o' my
folks to holp me, so I'm ergoin* to try an' find hit.'

"She ketched her breath. They cut up wild when
they thought ary one were a'ter their stills. Onct they
was a man come to take the senses o' the people, and

MY LOST NOVEL 213

Henry Slimp druv him erway at the p'int o 9 a gun they
was so carritly o' strangers.

" 'Hain't ye skeered?' she whispers.

" 'Cain't no more 'n kill us/ says I. 'But I reckon the
Lord 11 take keer o' us. My son-in-law an* one o* my boys
went over to that still an' got drunk las 5 Sunday, an*
they fit an 3 fit, an' scratched eround twil they knocked
the skin all off o' each other. They's got to be a stop put
to it. Them stills has got to be cut out o 5 hur and me
and you has got to do hit/

"We started up the mountain jist as steep as that,
jist like that, so steep but we could ketch erlong with
our sticks on the trees an 3 bushes. An 3 it were the snowiest
day I ever did see in my life. The fog froze on the tim-
ber twil hit were perfectly awful lookin' to be out.

"I went erhead, as I were the youngest; I went pullin*
up the mount'in, an', by and by, we got to the top.

"We went on an' started down eround the mountain.
The walk were jist so narrer that we couldn't walk side
by side, so we started Injun like.

"I guess we went a mile from thar and the snow
most half a leg deep.

"Then we came to a dreadful laVl, hit 's la VI an*
ivy, we call hit. I think youse call hit la VI and rhody-
dendrum. Thar were a lot o' big pine trees thar. Oh, how
snowy 'twere out o* that la VI trail looked like you'd
go down over your head.

"We stopped to git our breaths and nay heart were
floppiti* like the wings of a skeered potteridge. 'Twere
so still down thar. Bang! foes a rifle right nigh us and a
bullet skittered through the bushes over our heads an*
down come a lot o' snow on us like hit had tore inter a
feather bed. Seemed like my back had bruk in two in the
middle. I knowed somebody were watchin' us. Aunt

214 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Tildy's face turned white like 'twere snowin' inside o' her.

" 'Skeered?' she whispers.

" 'Bawdacious!' I says. 'Let's pray to God a minnit/

"We done prayed in our hearts. I see Aunt Tildy's
lips movin', but they made nary bit o' noise no more
than the wings o' a whippoorwill.

" "They sha'n't skeer me/ I says. Tm jist ergoin*
right on. The Lord has told me to/

"The bushes jist flipped up under our clothes and
our stockin's an' dresses was all wet.

"Well, I says: 'Now you take down this erway and
I'll go up that erway/

"So I went erbout twenty-five yards, I reckon, and
come to a trail eround the mount'in. Hit's jist as slick
as glass.

"We dug erlong on that trail erbout half a mile
eround the side o' the mount'in and I jist run into the
still-house. I stepped back a step or tew. I thought some-
body might be in thar and shoot us.

"I stepped back and said: 'Here 'tis, Aunt Tildy/

"And thar 'twere, and we got home wet an' erbout
half froze. No, he couldn't afford to kill us. And pap
went for the revenoo officer, but when we got down thar
the still were gone, and that were the windin' up o 9 hit."

"I hear that up in the mountains they believe in
witches," I remarked. "Do you believe in them?"

"Don't guess I do not big but they's some that
do. I always allowed hit didn't do no harm. Used to be a
man up thar by the name o' Jacksbo Hame. He said the
way to know if ye be a witch doctor is to go out on the
mount'in at sunrise an' shoot nine times at the sun. If ye
be a doctor right a'ter the las* shot blood'll flow out o*
yer gun bar'l."

It astonished me to learn that those mountaineers

MY LOST NOVEL 2IJ

were really living in the early part of the seventeenth cen-
tury with the superstitions of the common folk of old
England.

"Can you tell me a witch story?" I asked.

"I cain tell you a witch story that my mammy used
to tell. Onct they were a boy name o* Jack, an 5 he were
dreadful worritty an* pore. This little boy he had no
mammy an* no pappy, an* were real tard [tired] o* living
an 5 so he thought he would har [hire] to the miller to
'tend his milL That were a way o* dyin*, everybody said.
He went over to the miller's house, an' he says: *I want
to har to you to 'tend to your mill for you/

" 'Well, 111 tell you, Jack, every miller that I har
jist lives one night/

" 'Well, bedads, I'd jist as soon be dead as erlive,
so I believe I'll take the job,* said Jack.

"The man hard him, give him some meat an* some
coffee, an' told him he would find cookin' tools down
to the mill.

"So Jack went down to the old log-mill. He cooked
his supper, set down by his fry'n-pan on the floor, broke
him a piece o' bread an* begun to sop hit into his pan o*
fat. Were great big cracks in the mill-house *twere jist
a pole crib an* the moon were a shinin* through 'em
purty an* bright. All of a sudden like hit got as dark as
a dungeon, an* the cracks looked like they was filled up
with coals o* fire. Jack blowed a blaze to see what had
darkened the house so. When he did he seed all them cracks
jist packed full o* cats. Every one o' the cats were black
but one. This were an old tabby cat, an* the old tabby
cat jumped right down by his fry'n-pan, reached hits
paw over into the sop an* says: 'Sop-dol-sop/

"Jack says: 'If you put your ol* paw in that erg'in,
I'll whack hit off/

2l6 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"She reached her paw in erg'in and says: *Sop-dol-
sop.'

"Then they were a quick swimmish o' cats! Ev'ry one
o* them jumped right down on to the floor an' stood with
their ha'r riz, lookin' at him.

"She reached her paw in erg'in an' he whacked hit
off, and when he whacked hit turned to a womern's hand
with a ring on one finger. 'Twere a grand, purty ring.
He picked that hand up an' couldn't take the ring off
hit so he stuck the hand in his pocket. Every one o' the
cats jist jumped right out through the cracks, like streaks
o' black lightnin'.

"An' soon as the cats had gone erway, that womern's
hand 'gun to jump eround in his pocket, like a chicken
with the head cut off o' hit, and he tried to throw hit out
but hit hung on to the cloth, and he were skeered, so he
hollered and yelled and run up to the miller's house. Soon
as he got out o' the mill that hand dod [died] and lay
still as a rag in his pocket. The miller heard him and come
out.

"Jack showed him the womern's hand an* told him
'bout the cats.

"The miller says: 'That's my wife's hand. She's sick
this mornin'. I'll take this hand, an' go see what she has
to say.'

"He went in whar his wife lay in bed, and he says
to her: 'Sarah, let me see your left hand.'

"She poked him out her right.

"He says: "Sarah, let me see your left hand/

"She begun cryin' and says: "Hit's gone.'

"He says: 'Yes, hur hit is.' He says: 'Sarah, you're a
witch, and you're the one that's done killed my millers.
Now, if you'll tell me who every one o' the rest o' them

MY LOST NOVEL 2I/

witches is, an* let me have them all burned, then they
sha'n't burn you.'

"So he had the rest o* the witches burned and that
made their friends all mad, but he wouldn't let them burn
his wife, 'count o* his promise; but he let them hang her.
And that put an end to a good many witches in these hur
parts/'

This is one of the tales that she told to her children:

Onct there was a boy an' I never did see no one so
outdacious brave. He were one o* the bravest humans that
ever did live. He were a shamickin' erlong the road one
day an' were passin* through a town. A king pops out
an' says:

"What be your name?"

"Stiff Dick."

"Be you a right brave man?"

"Yes, bedads, I be."

"Well now, we have got a wild municorn over in
this yere country an' we want to git him killed. I will
give anybody a thousand dollars that will kill him."

""Well, bedads, pay me five hundred down an' I will
kill him for you."

The king slaps down the money.

Stiff Dick, he says to himself: "I've got five hundred
dollars now an' I'm ergoin* to leave hur."

So he started over through the woods an' mount'ins
an* the municorn smelled him an* tuk right a*ter him.
So Dick started to run an* he run an* run an* run. Late
in the evenin* he were gettin* mighty nigh tard to death
an* he didn't see no chanct *cept to clomb a big oak. He
made for the tree. He didn't have time to clomb hit so he
run eround hit. The municorn giv a jump at him. He were
tryin* f er to nail him to the tree with the one long horn

2l8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

that stuck out o* his forehead. Dick dodged an 3 the muni-
corn he jus 5 stove his horn plumb into the wood an 5
couldn't pull hit out.

The boy come eround an* he seed the municorn were
ketched tight. Dick went on back to town.

King come out an' says: "Did you git the municorn?"
"Lord o* mercy! Never seed no municorn! A little
bull calf with one horn come at me back in the mountains.
I picked him up by the tail, stove his head agin a tree
an' stuck him thar by his horn. If you want him killed,
you cain go up thar an* kill him yourself. I reckon 'twould
pleasure you to kill him."

So the king got him an army o' men an' went up
an* killed the municorn. Come back. Paid Stiff Dick his
other five hundred dollars.

"Well, now, bedads, I'm gittin' rich," says Dick. "I'm
ergoin* to git out o' this part o' the country while I've
got a thousand dollars."

The king says: "Now, we've got one more thing that
we want you to kill."

"Well, what be hit?"
"Well, hit's a 1'on, a wild 1'on."
King paid him five hundred dollars more an' he
started to git out o' the country. Went up in the moun-
t'ins on his way home, an' the 1'on smelled him an* tuk
a'ter him. He run an' run all day long an' were jist
tard to death. The 1'on stopped to kill a dog that were out
thar a huntin'. That give Dick his chanct. He seed a lone,
slim pine an' he clomb hit an' the 1'on come a'ter Dick
an' started to gnaw the tree down, an' he gnawed an*
gnawed an* while he were ergnawin* Dick jumped right
erstraddle o' the Ton's back. Hit skeered the 1'on an* he
started to run an' Stiff Dick he held right tight into the
1'on's ha'r. The 1'on were so skeered he didn't know which

MY LOST NOVEL 219

erway to git to, so tie done made a straight line right to
the town. Skeered the men an' they run out with their
guns an' shot the 1'on down.

Stiff Dick he got off an' 'gun to cut a terrible rusty.
He swore straight up an' down that he were breakin' that
1'on to make the king a ridy horse, an' he cut up so that
the king made the men pay him another thousand dollars
an' when he left thar he had riches an' riches.

I had a movable shop after the house burned in 1917
and I built a modest home on a lake shore in Winter Park,
Florida. I had dreamed of a small but beautiful structure.
Murray King gave me an Oriental design, and William
Rutherford Mead, of McKim, Mead and White, gave the
design the approval I sought with the word "beautiful."
I think that many have agreed with him. I have had happy
and fortunate years in that home. My health has improved.
Since I moved to Florida I have had no illness save a wry
neck that came upon me in the North. The winter weather
is mostly summer-like and delightful. I have more than
half a mile of trails, one of them looping into a beautiful
hammock. Almost every afternoon I am either tramping
there or playing golf. The weather, which enables one to
breathe fresh air heated by sunlight, is only a part of the
assets offered by Florida. After late December, strawber-
ries, new peas and string beans, and a variety of fruits and
vegetables, gathered the day we eat them, are on our table.
Why should not Old Age and Failing Strength delay
their corning surrounded as we are by beauty, good com-
pany, and almost every solace that a metropolis could
offer.

But at the end of all this I have to record a sorrow
that no child was ever born in any home of mine, save
the one in which my life began.

PART IV

GREAT TRUE STORIES THAT I HAVE DISCOVERED
IN MY JOURNEY UP THE ROAD

19. A SON OF HEAVEN

IT happened years ago that I came into possession of cer-
tain facts in a beautiful mystery. In all my reading and
listening I have learned of nothing like it.

The mystery was a man with a great light in his soul
shining out of the shadow that surrounded him. I was to
learn that it was a shadow which for a time had darkened
the world. When I say of this strange man that he had
the magic of a genius comparable only to that of the im-
mortal few, I am quoting men qualified to estimate it. He
was a master of the violin wandering in the countryside
where I was born, unable or unwilling to explain himself.

We knew that he was called Nick Goodall. The com-
positions of the great masters came from his instrument.
Yet his marvelous skill and knowledge were utterly un-
merchantable. He played only to satisfy his own ears and
those of the people who chanced to hear him and always
without price. It was as free as the air we breathed.

I was brought up in a countryside filled with hard-
working people who had a rich endowment of common
sense. Uncommon things excited their curiosity. About all
the music they had known was that of the fiddler, the
canary bird, the asthmatic cottage organ, and the melo-
dious evangelism of Moody and Sankey. Once a well-
trained lady singer from New York delivered some fa-
mous arias in the Town Hall. Most of the audience agreed
"that it didn't make sense." Trilled declarations in a for-
eign language did not appeal to them. Yet everyone felt

223

224 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

the magic of Nick's bow. Often those hard-handed peo-
ple would sit until midnight hearing it and loving it.

He seemed to like the pleasant hills and valleys of
northern New York in summer weather. How and where
he lived in winter I have never learned. Some poorhouse
may then have been his home. Nobody knew where he
came from. If he could have told, he never did.

He arrived in a village dusty and footsore, his violin
in a waterproof case. The tavernkeeper gave him a hearty
welcome to which he made no reply. He was a silent man.
He did not seem to doubt his title to hospitality. Word
went through the village that Nick had arrived. Before
the time for early candle lighting, village folk thronged
the hotel to hear him play. The office, the parlor, and the
stairway were soon crowded. When he came from his
room, the great master took the chair reserved for him,
his violin at his side. He was as indifferent to the people
around him as the clock on the wall. He lived the inner
life.

All eyes were on this strange ambassador of heaven,
impatient for him to begin to play. He never responded
to an invitation. Soon he would take the violin from its
case and tune it. A silence fell. It was like a calm sea
waiting for the wind. Then with his magic he opened the
door of a new world. It was a dream world of noble and
impassioned sounds coming from the imaginations of
Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Bach,
Brahms, Berlioz, and Paganini.

The violin had its own language. Its noble eloquence
was a thing new to the simple folk among whom Nick
had come. And yet they felt its power even they, accus-
tomed mostly to the emotions created by the political
orator, the revivalist, the horse trader, the circus, the
fair, and the prize pumpkin.

A SON OF HEAVEN 225

The great, rich tones, the swiftly dying cadences, the
mighty rhythms, the impassioned face, the marvelous
technique, gave some of them a memory that was like a
tower on the commonplace level of their lives.

Often the spell would be suddenly and rudely broken.
The player would stop with a loud and shocking exclama-
tion. What did it mean? One phase of its meaning was
quite apparent. His deep emotions were not under con-
trol. He was like a man in the breakers coming from the
sea. They swept him off his feet. He was undoubtedly a
great master but not a master of himself. That explained
why he was a wandering minstrel, strangely unknown. Yet
the great gift of this man was not going to waste. It was
having an effect especially on the spirit of the young. I
heard of one whom it led into high paths.

One day some young men driving along a country
road found him sitting in the shade of a great beech tree,
at the edge of a grove by the roadside. He was resting, his
violin at his side. They hitched their horse and walked
toward him.

"How do you do, Mr. Goodall?" one of them asked.

The violinist nodded and said:

"Yes."

It was a curious answer. Naturally, the boy thought
that Nick had not understood him.

tc l heard you play at the Rolston House one evening
in June. It was wonderful."

Nick did not answer. He took the violin from its
case and tuned it.

"I play for the birds," he said.

He played a lively, merry piece of music. It may have
been The Devil's Trill, which he often played.

The piece came to its end. The player sat, his violin
in his lap, listening to many birds singing joyously in the

226 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

treetop above their heads robins, wood thrushes, winter
wrens. He smiled as he looked upward. The applause of
his feathered audience seemed to please him.

Of what was he thinking when he began a solemn,
meditative piece on the fourth string? Here was art that
would have created thunders of applause in any great city.
In it was the voice of love and sorrow and deep regret.
It was like a thrilling tale of history. His eyes were wet
when he stopped and shouted: "Jesus Christ!" It was not
profanity. Was it a raptured exclamation of joy or did it
come from some memory?

Milan Lewis thought he could control Goodall and
commercialize his genius. He dressed him up and adver-
tised him extensively for a concert in a city of 15,000
people. The big hall was filled, Nick kept them waiting
some time for the music promised.

I knew Lewis, himself a musician, and I remember
his description of the concert. Nick played like an angel,
beginning with a ballad of Chopin's that started slowly
and solemnly, soon quickening its pace and challenging
the most brilliant technique of which a master is capable.
He won the heart of his audience and then put his heel
upon it. The tempo changed, returning to the solemn
theme of the great composer with tones that were sym-
bols of immensity. He played to the end of the passage
and the slow procession of deep tones seemed to light his
face with their beauty. One little note wavered into
silence like a falling leaf. Lewis could hear dimly the
humming strings when Nick stopped and shouted the
name of the Savior. What a shock! It was like a drunk-
ard's oath in a prayer meeting. Half the audience jumped
in their seats and settled back appalled.

Nick added another shocking exclamation, in his

A SON OF HEAVEN 227

excitement, as he wiped his face with his new handker-
chief.

A number of ladies rose and walked out with a swish
of skirts and an indignant toss of the head. Others fol-
lowed them. Squads of churchmen were leaving. The
music was great, but the iniquity was greater. A time had
come for good people to do their duty. The conscience
of the community was touched. It was a thing not to be
trifled with. The golden splendor of no poet's dream could
hold them, and Mr. Lewis's dream of wealth abruptly
ended.

It came to my mind when I was writing Eben
Holden. I spoke of him rather briefly in that book. More
than a hundred letters came to my desk about Nicholas
Goodall. Patrick Gilmore and Thomas F. Ryan of the
Mendelssohn Quintet in Boston both eminent musicians
wrote of his playing, with great enthusiasm. Others
wrote that he had spent some time in Salem, Massa-
chusetts, and in Elmira, New York.

At last there came a letter that threw a stream of
light on the mystery. I learned that Nick was the son of
a man who was first violinist in the excellent orchestra of
Ford's Theatre in Washington when Lincoln was assas-
sinated and that as a boy he had shown remarkable talent
for the violin. He had toured the continent as a prodigy
when he was eight years of age. I learned also that in 1865
he was sixteen years old a slim, pale, silent lad who prac-
ticed from six to ten hours a day. Only a masterful genius
would have the patience to do that. He was memorizing
the compositions of the great masters in preparation for
a world tour. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln had heard him play
and had been impressed by his power.

The world tour did not come off. Not until I was

228 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

getting my color for a certain Lincoln book did I begin
to realize what had happened to this sensitive young
genius. No doubt he was in the theater with his father
that night of April 14, 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were
going to be there. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln loved to hear the
boy play and between the final acts probably he was
scheduled to play for them. His father was to be his im-
presario, a point not to be missed.

Now we go to Ford's Theatre on that fateful night.
It was filled with the best people, for the famous Sothern
was playing his great role of Lord Dundreary in Our
American Cousin. He was inimitable. The presidential
party was late in arriving. It consisted of Mr. and Mrs.
Lincoln and two young lovers Miss Harris and Major
Henry R. Rathbone. The play stopped and the orchestra
went immediately into Hail to the Chief.

Again Mr. Sothern got possession of his audience
with the amusing talk and antics of Lord Dundreary.
Everyone was laughing. Suddenly the fatal shot, the
swift, bloody struggle of Major Rathbone and the assassin,
the latter's leap to the stage, dagger in hand, the cries of
murder, the indescribable panic as the head of the great,
beloved man fell forward. Everyone's heart was shaking
as a dog shakes himself after a cold bath.

The little comedy of manners went out like a candle
in the wind while one of the great tragedies of history
took possession of the theater and began to rock the
world with its overwhelming significance and pathos. The
unfortunate people who were part of that terrible scene
were like those overturned in a raging sea. Many were
wrecked and broken by the sudden leap from laughter to
appalling tragedy. The change had come with blinding
swiftness. It was more than human nerves could endure.

A SON OF HEAVEN 229

Nearly everyone in the crowd was crazy and some never
quite recovered their poise.

It was that vivid account of the scene in Nicolay and
Hay's history probably written by John Hay that
made it clear to me that Nicholas GoodalTs nervous sys-
tem had been broken down in that tragic ten minutes.
This paragraph in the history suggests his great trial:

"Over all the rest the blackest fates hovered menac-
ingly fates from which a mother might pray that kindly
death would save her children in their infancy/'

He speaks of the accursed man fleeing in pain to die
a dog's death and adds:

"The stricken wife was to pass the rest of her days
in melancholy and madness; of the two lovers one was to
slay the other and then end his life a raving maniac/'

The hospitals and probably the asylums were over-
crowded for a time after that. Goodall and his son Nich-
olas both human beings of unusual sensitiveness were
of course nervously broken. It is likely that the father
did not long survive the shock and that he left his son in
an asylum from which he was discharged to become an
inspired, penniless, and half -insane wanderer.

This tragic figure now lies in the cemetery of "Water-
town, New York, with a decent headstone above his
grave. He died in the almshouse of that city in 1880. His
violin was sold for enough to pay the cost of the plot, the
burial, and the headstone. Mayor Bingham, of Water-
town, sent the violin to me. It now lies behind glass in
my living room. It is a plain-looking instrument in ap-
pearance, not at all like the beautiful Gaspar di Salo of
Ole Bull, with scrolls carved by Cellini, its varnish seem-
ing to set the wood ablaze on a brilliantly lighted stage.

Always the great Paganini was announced with these
fine words:

2}0 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

"Paganini f ara sentire il suo violino" which, implied
that to him his violin had a personality.

This old instrument of GoodalFs was able to put
Patrick Gilmore and thousands o other people in mind
of Paradise.

20. THE BOORN MYSTERY 1

THE BOORN MYSTERY was connected with that long beau-
tiful valley north of the Adirondacks where I was born.
To the old-time Vermonters, "going west" meant going
to the St. Lawrence Valley in upper New York or to that
of the Genesee. In the first twenty-five years of the nine-
teenth century many of them fared away to my country.
There everyone's grandparents were telling the strange
story of Stephen and Jesse Boorn and Russell Colvin. This
talk was stimulated by the fact that the main character
in the mystery was living in northern New York at the
time of his arrest. The story has puzzled the best legal
minds. It presents a startling problem in psychology. In-
deed, it involves the psychology of a generation of people
as well as that of two men. The Boorn Mystery throws a
powerful light on the mental condition of our pioneer
folk before good schools had begun to lead them out of
the hard way of superstition and ignorance into an under-
standing of their duty to themselves and their fellow
men.

The first westward movement of old New England
was toward the wilderness of Vermont. After the excite-
ment of the Revolution had passed, a great change began
in the wide, fertile, stumpy clearings of that wild region.
The cabins were disappearing and the water power of the
streams was soon flowing into saw, grist, and carding

1 Those who may wish to study the details of this remarkable case will find them
in its history carefully prepared for the Vermont Historical Society by Sherman Rob-
erts Moulton to which I am indebted for this outline of the strange story.

231

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

mills. Comfortable frame houses were built. Graduates of
famous universities came to growing towns. Meeting-
houses were erected but the farmer folk, the millmen,
and the small merchants were mostly a crude people.
These were they who had lived through the hell of the
first pioneering and with almost no help from law or
religion. That kind of man is almost sure to find his em-
phasis in profanity and his pleasure in drunkenness or
worse self-indulgence. The club and the gun were likely
to be his ministers of justice, and morality was a thing of
which he had little knowledge.

Barney Boorn had a farm near Manchester. I gather
that he was a man just coming out of this condition of
pioneer simplicity. He was married a step in the upward
path and Stephen and Jesse were his sons. Probably they
had learned how to write their names but no doubt read-
ing would have been a heavy task for them. Their sister,
Sally, was married to Russell Colvin, a shiftless young
man of no character who worked for his father-in-law
by the day. He and Sally lived with Sally's father, Barney
Boorn. Now and then Russell would have a row with the
family and clear out. He would stay away for a week or
two and then return.

It was known in the neighborhood that his brothers-
in-law, Stephen and Jesse, hated and despised him. They
resented the fact that he and his growing family lived in
their father's home while they had "to work out," living
no doubt where they were employed. The growing of
Colvin's family worried them. It put an increasing tax on
the Boorn property. Often they quarreled with Colvin.

Suddenly he disappeared. It was in the late spring of
1812. Weeks, months, and years passed but no news of the
missing man came to that neighborhood. After some
three years had gone by it became known that Sally was

THE BOORN MYSTERY 233

with child. She was advised by a lawyer that she could
not "swear the child on any man" until it was known that
her husband was dead.

This event probably stimulated the gossip in the
neighborhood, for many had the notion that Stephen and
Jesse Boorn had murdered Colvin and concealed his body.
The suspicion was then in the whispering stage. The two
brothers were known to have been picking up stones with
Colvin in a field on the day he disappeared. It was known
also that they had had a violent quarrel that day. More-
over, people in the neighborhood had heard them say that
Colvin had gone to hell that they had put him "where
potatoes would not freeze." It was known, too, that
Stephen had often expressed the wish that both Colvin
and his sister were dead.

In time a log heap on the Boorn farm was mysteri-
ously set afire and destroyed and in 1819, when all the
gossip had begun to travel in the loud voice of convic-
tion, one of the Boorn barns got afire and was soon turned
into ashes. It was then thought that Colvin's body had
been concealed either in the log heap or in the barn. A
man had found an old hat, so decayed that it easily fell
to pieces, near the place where Colvin was last seen. He
had always worn his hat when he went away.

Stephen knew that he was suspected of being the
murderer of the missing man. He answered certain people
with these reasonable words: "We did say that we had
put him where potatoes would not freeze but we would
never have said that if we had really killed him."

In 1817 Stephen moved to northern New York with
his family, Jesse remained near his old home.

In 1819 a curious event turned conviction into cer-
tainty. Amos Boorn a relative of Stephen said to be a
man of good character, set the countryside afire with a

234 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

remarkable dream. In his dream Russell Colvin had come
to his bedside and told him that he had been murdered.
That his body had been concealed in an old cellar hole
where a house had once stood. Twice the specter had re-
turned, urging action. The dreamer was impressed but
not more than were the simple folk who heard him tell
the story. To them and probably to Amos it was a divine
revelation.

The cellar hole, then filled with leaves and earth, was
excavated. A button, three rusted pocketknives, and some
broken crockery were discovered. A jackknife and the
button were shown to Sally. The dirt being scraped from
the button, it was found to be of a brown color and to
have the shape of a flower on its face. The knife and the
button she quickly identified as those of her husband. The
people and even the minister were now sure that God had
come into the case and was helping to clear up the mys-
tery. Many saw the power of divinity in another singular
event.

A small boy, when near the house of Barney Boorn,
saw his dog rush to an old hollow stump and begin dig-
ging at its base so intently that he could not be called
away. Soon he returned to the boy and stood whining
with his forefoot on the boy's legs. Then he rushed back
to his digging. The men and women of that countryside
gave a deep significance to the passionate whining and the
unappeasable energy of the dog. The boy watched the
canine excavator and found that a number of bones and
two toe and thumb nails were unearthed. Had they been
removed from the ruins of the burnt barn and buried
under the stump?

The Reverend Mr. Haynes in the meetinghouse pub-
licly declared that this looked like divine revelation. A
court of inquiry began to investigate. Three physicians

THE BOORN MYSTERY 235

declared that the bones had been part of a human foot.
One physician disagreed with the others, but all were of
the opinion that the toenails had been those of a man.
They, in connection with the jackknife, the button, the
hat, and the statements of Stephen, satisfied the minds of
many people. A court of inquiry began to consider the
evidence.

The inquiry went on for days but the inquirers were
not satisfied with the evidence and nothing would have
come of it save for one singular fact. Jesse Boorn shook
with agitation when he saw the jackknife and in a voice
that trembled confessed his belief that Russell Colvin had
been murdered by his brother Stephen, that Stephen had
even confessed to him that he had hit Colvin on the back
of the head with a club and broken his skull.

Jesse was put in jail and constables were sent to
Lewis County in northern New York to arrest and bring
Stephen to Manchester. The man was brought back in
chains. Having seen Stephen, Jesse confessed that his story
had been false. But his recanting was not believed. The
two brothers were thrust into jail with irons on them to
await the action of the grand jury. They spent the hot
summer in chains and in a darkened room. The minister
and many others came to them and urged them to con-
fess. They were depressed and fearful but stoutly asserted
their innocence.

Late in August Stephen sent word to the judges and
the state's attorney that he wished to see them. They came
to the jail and in their presence Stephen wrote a full con-
fession of the murder, done in a violent quarrel. He told
in detail how he had concealed the body for a time and
later dug a grave in which it was put.

In September, 1819, the two brothers were indicted
and some time later the court convened to try them in

236 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

the Congregational Church, that being the only edifice in
town which could accommodate the excited community.

The dignified Dudley Chase, graduate of Dartmouth,
ex-United States senator and uncle of Salmon P. Chase,
of Lincoln's Cabinet, presided.' Judge Joel Doolittle, a
graduate of Yale, sat with him. The state's attorney was
a graduate of Middlebury College and the lawyer for the
defense had been educated at the well-known Litchfield
Law School. It was an able court.

Some new and important evidence was presented.
Jesse under the influence, it would appear, of a super-
natural visitor had made a new confession as to Stephen's
guilt and the concealment of the body to a fellow pris-
oner in the jail. Under the law the accused could not tes-
tify in their own behalf nor was the corpus delicti neces-
sary. The young men had no chance to deny their con-
fessions and they were convicted.

Stephen was sentenced to be hanged in January and
Jesse to prison for life.

The mystery now begins.

Before the date of execution arrived, an article in a
New York newspaper led to the discovery of the fact that
Russell Colvin, partially deranged, was alive in Monmouth
County, New Jersey, and was working for one William
Polhemus in the town of Dover. This man was brought
back to Manchester and perfectly identified as Russell
Colvin.

The mystery lies in the confessions that suggest these
queries:

Is it possible for an innocent man, of a somewhat
inferior intellect, under suffering and great pressure to
be convinced that he is guilty of a crime?

Did Stephen hope that his confession of murder in a

THE BOORN MYSTERY 237

quarrel would enable him to avoid a penalty more severe
than that of manslaughter?

And how may one account for Jesse's confession in
which he tells of seeing the murder and of helping to
carry the body to the old cellar an account so detailed
and convincing that the carefully chosen jury of intelli-
gent, unbiased men seems to have believed it?

Do suffering and persistent pressure bring about a
derangement of the mental functions and the illusions of
insanity illusions that create reasonable details as to a
murder and the effort to conceal it?

21. FOUND TREASURE
In the Uncovering of an Old and Beautiful Romance

SHARD VILLA how many rays of memory shine down
upon me through the sixty years since I shared its hospi-
tality! It was a big, square, stone mansion on the old road
from Middlebury to Brandon in Vermont. Under the tur-
ret of its front tower was a white stone on which the
words Shard Villa had been cut. The words and the estate
were the final chapter of one of the great romances of
history, which had its beginning far back in the eighteenth
century. Of this fact I was entirely ignorant while I lived
there a boy in my seventeenth year as teacher of the
two children of the master and mistress of the mansion,
Mr. and Mrs. Columbus Smith.

These dear people are long since gone, root and branch,
and a time has come when I can tell their story. They had
two children a boy eleven years of age and a girl just
beginning her tenth year. They were a lively, beautiful
pair.

In all the world I think that there was not another
man like Columbus Smith or another estate like his. He
was the most picturesque figure of a man that ever stood
before me stout and of medium stature, thick hair, white
as snow, eyes and eyebrows black. As I remember him there
was not a wrinkle in his big, ruddy, smooth, serious face.
In it was the expression of an indomitable will. One may
almost say it was a will that had done impossible things.

In the house he wore a short coat of brown doeskin, a

238

FOUND TREASURE 239

figured-silk waistcoat, across the front of which ran the
clasped and tripled lengths of a gold watch chain with a
large fob hanging in the line of the buttons. This chain
was left to me and is now in my safe. His lips were rather
. tightly closed. He said little and when he spoke he scarcely
seemed to open his mouth. In deliberating he would take
a silver snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket, tap its side,
open It, and inhale a pinch of snuff and then express a
brief opinion. If his neighbor, John Dyer, was under
discussion, his opinion would be distinctly unfavorable.

He said little. He had no intimate friends, no en-
thusiasms, probably because he had been, for many years,
the slave of a great, absorbing task. In the midst of the
crowds of London he had been a man apart and alone.
I think that he had some sense of humor crushed and
disabled by years of serious work.

Mr. Smith had made a large fortune, after many years
of practice in the British Court of Claims, and had re-
turned to his native heath. There he had bought a large
acreage and built his mansion with a great turreted gray-
stone wall enclosing the ample grounds of the villa. He
had tenant houses and his life was fashioned after that
of the English squire. Yet he had not been able entirely
to put aside the old Yankee thrift and simplicity inherited
from his fathers. Horses and hounds were not for him.
When he went to his bank in Brandon he sat in a plain,
side-spring buggy behind a farm horse and did his own
driving. Mrs. Smith, with the aid of one of the many
hired men, would see that this buggy was kept clean, and
I remember once she bossed the painting of it.

They were both as innocent of any knowledge of art
as the most Ignorant denizen of the mountain country
that fronted the villa. They had brought from Italy an
artist to decorate the walls of the mansion. He had covered

240 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

them with vivid colors. I think that a good country sign
painter could have done a better job.

One of my first tasks at the villa was a rather trying
one. The old Scotch gardener had not come to breakfast.
Mr. Smith had tried the door of his little house on the
grounds and found it locked inside. He had called and
got no answer. I was young and supple. He had succeeded
in opening a narrow window that led to the cellar. I
crawled through it, jumped to the cellar bottom and
climbed two flights and found the old man helpless on the
floor. He had had a stroke and was near his end. I looked
at him lying in the dim, melancholy light that sifted
through the blue-paned window and hurried down the
stairway and opened the front door.

After the big mansion was finished Mr. Smith gave
to the estate a grim and singular token of his unique
character. I almost shudder when I think of it, for the
thing seems to have tempted fate and to have put a curse
on him and his descendants.

He built a handsome gray-stone mausoleum on the
grounds near the big house for himself and his family.
It would seem that he wished to be reminded every day
of the inevitable end of life.

Both he and his wife seemed to enjoy living. Gov-
ernors, generals, senators, bishops, and college presidents
came to enjoy the hospitality of the villa. At commence-
ment time, the faculty and graduating class of Middle-
bury were entertained there.

The mansion could not have had a more delightful
setting with green mountain peaks some five miles in front
of it and a beautiful valley between.

I went home to begin my college course. Five years
had passed and I was at work in New York when a let-
ter informed me that the mausoleum had got its first vie-

FOUND TREASURE 24!

tim. At sixteen the boy William, who had grown to be
more than six feet tall, had died of meningitis.

In the middle of the next summer I rode on my bi-
cycle from New York to Shard Villa. It was the first of
many visits after my leaving there. Smith had aged rap-
idly. The loss of his son, who was the main hope of his
life, had softened the granite nature of the man.

They were glad to see me. I connected them with a
dear and happy past, Mary, familiarly called Pinky, was
a beautiful girl in her sixteenth year. The old gentleman
was kind and thoughtful of my comfort, but silent. He
said little to anyone. Mrs. Smith liked to talk of the be-
loved son who had left them.

The servants were growing gray. They seemed to
feel the deep, cold shadow that had fallen upon the house.
Mr. Ranney, the farm superintendent, was now a rather
feeble, old man but still on duty. What a curious con-
servatism in the master and mistress of the villa! There
were no changes in its working force. A faithful servant
was never cast out. They were like members of the fam-
ily. They had a pride in the name and fame of Columbus
Smith and in the grandeur of his person and estate.

I spent three days at the villa and when I was leav-
ing Mr. Smith said to me: te l shall be coming to New
York soon and will see you there."

A year passed. It was midsummer again when a let-
ter informed me that he would be at the Grand Union
Hotel on a certain day, where at six o'clock in the eve-
ning he would be glad to see me. I found him there. He
had recovered his composure and was more communicative
than I had ever known him to be. I was a man now not
a boy.

On the Park Avenue side of the hotel there were
armchairs near the wall where guests could sit in the eve-

FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ning, when the sun was low, and enjoy the cool open
air a few feet back of the sidewalk. After dinner we
went there and as the shadows of the night fell upon us
he told me the strange story of his life. He also loaned
me a manuscript record of it on which he had been work-
ing for some time. I observed that many of the words
were misspelled. He was one of those shrewd, mathematical
Yankees with a small gift for the architecture of words.
He had graduated from the law school of Middlebury Col-
lege early in the 1820$. I am not able to recall the year.
This is the story:

THE MAID OF THE BLACK HORSE
The year was about 1740. The Black Horse Tavern
was a popular inn near Trenton, New Jersey, owned and
kept by a Scotchman named William Rutherford. He had
a pretty daughter, Frances Mary, who served in the din-
ing room as a waitress. Her charm and beauty were a
subject of talk in the countryside and among the guests
of the inn. She was a well-formed, sweet-faced girl, with
manners better than her station in life. For that reason,
no doubt, she began to be called Lady Frances.

One summer day along came a grand coach and
four horses from Philadelphia. Its owner was young Lord
Fortescue, who was driving about with his grooms and
footmen to see the country. His lordship came in to din-
ner while the horses were being stabled. A noble guest
like that would be sure to have the comeliest maid in the
dining room. Frances Mary waited on him. The young
Irish lord was impressed by her beauty, for he came again
and again to the inn for dinner. There can be no doubt
that he was falling in love with the sweet-faced, shapely,
well-mannered girl. He was probably a good-looking young

FOUND TREASURE 243

fellow, and no doubt Frances Mary was proud of his at-
tentions and naturally pleased by them.

Her father, the dour old Scotch Presbyterian, was
not pleased and he was right. He knew that no good would
be likely to come of it. The young man was a playboy
fond of the flowing bowl. His lordship was informed that
he would no longer be welcome at the inn. It is probable
that the attachment had gone further than the innkeeper
suspected. Suddenly Frances Mary was missing. Soon a
letter came announcing that she had eloped with the young
lord and that they were to be married. It is likely that
her father had answered this letter and what he may have
said no one knows. The subsequent behavior of Frances
Mary would clearly indicate that bitter words had passed
between them. The Scotch religionist of that time had a
stern character.

Frances Mary never saw him again. The two elopers
were married and, as man and wife, they returned to the
ancestral home of the Fortescues in Ireland, where no
gentle welcome awaited them.

What? His son married to the daughter of an inn-
keeper? It was an outrage and a disgrace! The spirit of
the eighteenth century began to stride the floor as it had
done at the Black Horse Tavern. Was not pride a bigger
thing than charity? Fathers were kings in that time. This
one banished his son. He could have an income ample for
his needs as long as he kept out of Ireland. If he ever dared
to come back to his native land he would be cut off and
his income would stop.

So it happened that the young lord and lady were
packed off to the Continent in disgrace a homeless pair*
They traveled from city to city. Of where they went and
of what adventures came to them until they reached Paris,
Mr. Smith had no knowledge. It was probable that the

244 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

young man liad tried to find solace for his banishment in
drink.

He would seem to have been in bad health, for soon
he died in the capital of France. The girl was childless
and still comely. No doubt the old lord in Ireland con-
tinued to send money to keep her comfortable in the gay
city.

She made friends in the English colony and seems
never to have had a thought of returning to her old hoine.
Her humble work at the inn was then a thing far behind
her. The Rutherf ords would seem to have been cut out of
her life.

Among her friends in Paris was a wealthy English-
man named William Shard. The word "wealth" had a
different meaning then. Fifty thousand pounds was a large
fortune in the eighteenth century. Shard a man con-
siderably older than Frances Mary had an ancestral
estate at Paignton in England.

The second romance in this remarkable bit of history
began. Shard fell in love with Frances Mary. The Scotch
girl had acquired some wisdom. She wanted to know all
about him, and the reports were favorable. They were
married and went to live in Paignton. It was the old
baronial life that she lived there and Frances Mary be-
came the Lady Bountiful of that countryside.

"That is all I can say of her life at the country
house in Paignton/ 9 said Smith. "The time is far back
in the past. I only know that William Shard died leav-
ing Frances Mary childless and a woman beyond middle
age. She did not marry again. She made no will. There
were no heirs. She loved England and was quite content
to have her property go to the crown. She died intestate.

"When I left Middlebury College I began my prac-
tice. A certain case took me to England where I learned

FOUND TREASURE 245

that many estates had gone to the crown. A few years
after my return, I fell in with a great-grandson of Wil-
liam Rutherford of the old Black Horse Tavern. A num-
ber of great-grandchildren were living. The story of
Frances Mary had been handed down to them. One of
the family had learned of the death of the young lord in
Paris and of her marriage to a wealthy Englishman of the
name of Shard. The story had passed many lips in Paris.
I presume someone had brought it to Philadelphia and
then to the Black Horse Tavern. It was a fragment of
family history going from mother to daughter and from
father to son. Naturally, they had some pride in pass-
ing it on. I went to England and learned the main
facts in the story: that young Lady Fortescue, whose
name was Frances Mary, had married William Shard in
Paris, and that her fortune had gone to the crown.

"My troubles had just begun. I had to prove that
Frances Mary Shard was the daughter of William Ruther-
ford and that my clients were as they claimed to be
his descendants. Was it possible? Were the records still in
existence? There was the main trouble.

"I returned to America and went to Trenton. Some
years before a new county clerk's office had been built.
The old stone structure had only one room. They had
thought of burning the records so ancient that they were
unlikely to be of service to anyone. Some were for keeping
them, so they were dumped on the tiled floor of the de-
serted building. The door was locked and there they had
lain for many years. I could, if I wished, go to the old
clerk's office and in that big stack of ancient rubbish
try to find the records I desired. I went there. The heap
was as high as my shoulders, sloping like a hill to the floor.

"Here was a task like looking for a needle in a hay-
stack. I worked there for weeks and my patience was

246 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

rewarded, for I found a will of William Rutherford In
which he had mentioned his daughter Trances Mary, wife
of Lord Fortescue/ and his two sons from whom my
clients were descended. This was a lucky find. I discovered
deeds of the old tavernkeeper which increased my evi-
dence.

<c ln the parish records were the birth certificates. Con-
vinced, and, as I thought, prepared for my battle, I went
to England and opened my case in the Court of Claims.
I had a fight that lasted ten years. They would baffle me
with new demands. I would go back to America and re-
turn with their demands satisfied. They turned my hair
white with opposition and delay. The end of it came
when the Queen's Bench gave me a verdict for forty-five
thousand pounds with interest for ninety years. Shard
Villa is a monument to that verdict."

So this iron son of the Green Mountain country, with
the will of Agamemnon at the gates of Troy, had estab-
lished high credit in the most difficult court in the world.

*Tes, I won other cases there," he went on. "I had
learned how to do that work and had good credit with
the court. One case I shall never forget. I had got twenty
thousand pounds for a poor cobbler who lived in a coun-
try town in Michigan. I found him at work on his bench.
When I told him that I had fifty thousand dollars for him
he rose to his feet, took a step toward me and fell into
a broad tub of water that stood near his bench. Vertigo
was the result of his excitement. I found it difficult to
make him understand just what had happened.

* e 'What will I do with that money?' he asked.

'* 'Come with me and we will put it in the bank,*
I said. 'The banker will advise you what to do with it.*

"One case turned out rather badly. It was that of a
woman who stood before me twisting her handkerchief

FOUND TREASURE 247

as I told her the news. In a minute her mind had lost its
balance and she was never able to recover it. I have ob-
served that sudden wealth is almost sure to be a mis-
fortune."

Well into the night I sat there listening to this
magician who had the art of turning poverty into wealth.
For the last time I shook his hand.

The next winter I met Pinky in the home of Gen-
eral Veezy in Washington. She was a tall, shapely, beauti-
ful girl, with dark eyes and hair.

When I went again to Shard Villa, the mausoleum
held another victim. Pinky had been married to a young
naval officer who in two years had become a crazy drunk-
ard and killed himself. Brokenhearted, Pinky had returned
to her home ill with tuberculosis and had soon passed
away.

The great Columbus Smith was now utterly broken
down. The gift of speech had left him. He sat in a wheel
chair and looked at me. They told him my name and he
smiled. He tried to speak and a strange sound came from
his throat. Rose and Marie, Mrs. Smith's two maids, were
there, old and bent and gray.

That night I was awakened often by a weird cry
ringing through the dark, empty spaces of the great house.
It sank into a deep, leonine roar. I was to learn in the
morning that it was the voice of the master trying to
speak. How plainly it told me of the vain hopes and
glories of this little world of ours.

Soon after I went away, he, too, was taken to the
mausoleum. I returned to give the dear woman what com-
fort I could. We sat long by that lonely fireside talking
of the great days of old when the merry voices of the
children were there. I have never known a braver soul

248 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

than was in this woman one of the Joneses of old Clare-
mont. When I was leaving her she gave me the portrait
of Milton by Vandyke, hanging in the parlor. In 1829
Mr. Smith had bought it in a London auction room. It
seems to be the portrait described by Charles Lamb in a
letter to "Wordsworth.

One paragraph in Columbus Smith's will ought to be
mentioned. There is a little gleam of humor in it:

"I give to [here was the name of a man he disliked
because of his conceit] a feather for his cap."

The mausoleum has long since completed its task and
Shard Villa still stands now a home for aged people.

22. THE BIG MYSTERY

I LIKE the chimney corner and the warmth of the fire
when the day is gone. I like the day and its work, but I
like better the end of it and the sense that I have made
good use of its light when darkness falls and when the
blustering winds outside make the room an isle of still-
ness in the night. I like to tell this story in the chimney
corner to friends who can feel the bigness of it. I call It
as good a story as ever drifted to my beach.

Carlyle said of Tennyson that he was the best man
in England to smoke a pipe with. I can imagine what a
companion the great poet would have been with his
Imagination, his deep voice, and his pipe going. That Is
the kind of man who could have done something with
this story.

Back in my newspaper days a singular character came
to New York. I will call him Peter LaLone. I do not give
his real name because no doubt members of his family are
still living. It was a distinguished family. He was a musi-
cian. He had good manners and dressed like a gentleman.
It is likely that he brought with him a letter to Elmer
Chickering, whose store was on Fifth Avenue and who
made the well-known Chickering piano. Anyhow, he and
the pianomaker were by and by on friendly terms. The
stranger made it clear that he was in need of money. He
did not beg or borrow. But he must find a way to earn
a living. He knew good music. He had some skill in the
technique of piano playing. No doubt Chickering gave
him an introduction to the manager of the Mail and

249

250 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Express. For that newspaper LaLone began to write crit-
ical reviews of orchestral and operatic performances. The
demand for musical criticism is as limited as the number of
those who read it. On the press it is known as a "high-
brow" job. Many learned specialists are seeking it. More-
over, LaLone was irritable and difficult. He was not long
on the pay roll of the Mail and Express.

One day he called at the office of Mr. Chickering,
carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper and
tied with a string. It was burdensome. He wanted to get
rid of it. In that troublesome package was the great mys-
tery of a life. He asked Mr. Chickering if he would kindly
put the package in his big safe. LaLone had some errands
to do. He would call and get it soon. Chickering wrote
the name of his new friend on the package and put it
away in his safe. LaLone left him. He took the dark road
that is in this world and yet apart from it the road of
ghosts and of living dead men.

Chickering did not see him again alive. There were
those who got a glimpse of him now and then. Signs of
extreme poverty were on his person. He was shabby and
unclean. He shivered in the bitter winds of winter with-
out an overcoat. He lived in a squalid attic room in a
street of faded respectability. It was the last lodging on
the edge of the world where one waits for the ferry. He
was a forgotten man, alone with his God and his problem.
He lived alone; he died alone. Yet he was a member of a
well-known and aristocratic family a gentleman who
knew and valued the comforts of life.

He had been dead three days before his body was
discovered. A brief account of the discovery was printed
in the newspapers. It was only a few lines, for nobody
knew that a great soul had passed. Chickering read the
item. Then he thought of that package which for eleven

THE BIG MYSTERY 25!

years had been lying uncalled-for in his safe. He went to
the great steel box. There it lay. He had seen it often.
Sure that LaLone would be coming to get it someday, he
had allowed it to remain in the corner it had long occu-
pied. He now brought it to his desk, dusted it, and untied
the string. To his amazement the package contained noth-
ing but bank bills a moldy mass of money pounds and
pounds of it $1,000 bills, $500 bills, and many smaller
ones. It was a startling discovery. Chickering locked the
door. He reeled with vertigo.

What secret had been hidden in the heart which
loved music and on which the silence of death had fallen?
LaLone! The poor, worried man, struggling to earn his
daily bread with great riches in his possession! What was
the meaning of this and what was to be done about it?

He wrapped the package, tied it up carefully, and
put it back in the safe. He sent for my friend Judge
Swift, then a lawyer practicing in the city courts.
Through him I became familiar with the details and
background of this unusual case.

He came to Chickering's office. Together they
counted the heap of moldy bank bills. The amount was
about $450,000. Some of the bills had been issued by
banks long out of business. They searched the room of
the dead man. In an old hair-covered trunk under his
bed they also found a few thousand dollars.

The discoveries were immediately reported, and an
account of them was published in the newspapers. It was
an event strange and remarkable, even in New York.
The press made much of it. The verdict was naturally the
easy, palpable solution of the mystery namely, a miser
had come to his end. In New York one sensation crowds
upon the heels of another and pushes it out of the way.

252 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I, like others who watched the hurrying caravan of
events, accepted the easy verdict on the lone musician.

Suddenly a forged will came along. Certain men of
questionable standing laid claim to the moldy heap of cash
under a will ostensibly signed by the man LaLone. There
was no conclusive evidence that he had ever known them.
So it happened that Swift began a contest in behalf of
the next of kin for the possession of the money. The
senior counsel in the case, one of the most powerful advo-
cates I have known, was also a friend of mine. His efforts
defeated the forgers. His name was Leslie W. Russell.

One night soon after that I was dining with the dis-
tinguished lawyer in New York. Now, lawyers concern
themselyes only with proved facts that lend support to
their position. Motives that have no weight in the point
at issue do not concern them. The distinguished man told
me of learning that LaLone had held a position of respon-
sibility in New England and that whispers of suspicion
were in the air when he left his job. I was thrilled by this,
for I felt sure that I had the key to the mystery.

LaLone was no miser. A man of artistic temperament
is never a miser. If he had been a miser loving the pos-
session of money and the joy of surveying it, why had he
rid himself of that hoard of cash? If he loved money,
why subject it to the peril of theft in another's man's safe
and allow it to remain there for eleven years? Why did
he not put it in a bank? The truth is that he feared and
hated it. That money was accusing him, yelling at him
day and night, urging the man to take his shame upon
himself and be done with the matter. This he longed to
do but could not. His pride, his obligations to those dear
to him were in the way.

Those dear to him! It was chiefly of them he thought.
Who were they? I do not know. There was some one of

THE BIG MYSTERY 253

them whom he could not bear to disgrace. It may have
been his mother. He was hoping that she would die and
open the way to restitution. So he could not burn the
money, and meanwhile it was burning him. He could not
bear the look of it. He tried to get away from it, but he
must know where it was so that when the chance came
it could be restored to its rightful owner. He could not
induce himself to use a dollar of it. He would live by the
work of his hands or starve and avoid the look of afflu-
ence. So he lived as would a poor man in humble quarters,
giving suspicion no food to feed upon isolated, alone, a
creature not quite of this world.

This, I think, was the hell of Peter LaLone.

It was a part of the plot of my novel, Darrel of the
Blessed Isles.

23. MY FAMILY GHOST

MY friends had called for the story of No Man's House.
The room was dark except for the dim glow of the sink-
ing firelight when I began. I could see only the shadowed
forms and faces of those sitting around me. The semi-
darkness and the sound of the wind in the chimney had
suggested the story. As usual I assured those who had not
heard it that the ghost was no illusion.

The ghost came the first night we entered this
house. I seem to have provoked it by light and hasty
words. This long, rambling structure was finished and
furnished. Before the servants came we arrived late one
afternoon to spend a night together in our new home and
discuss our plans.

We walked from the station with some beer and a
cold luncheon in a light suitcase. Near our gate were the
cellar and tumbled walls of an old New England home-
stead.

I said to my wife: "That was a haunted house. I
acquired the ghost with the property. It is a female
ghost. For years she has had no decent accommodation.
Only the near woods to walk in and nobody to be scared
of her. She has been out of a job. Let's extend to her the
hospitality of our new home. A neglected ghost is worse
than none."

"A female ghost!" my wife exclaimed. "What do you
mean?"

As we walked slowly through the woods I imagined

254

MY FAMILY GHOST 255

the story of that forlorn ghost and told it. In the libraries
I had been studying the color of the colonial years and

was rather glib with it. This is about as it ran:

In the pre-Revolutionary time there were two
wealthy men who lived on the hill at Horseneck now
Greenwich. One was a merchant in the China trade who
owned many ships. He had a lovely maiden daughter of
the name of Mary. The other rich man was a lumber
merchant. He had been signally honored by the king and
was now his chief collector of revenues for the province.
His oldest son, George named for the King of England,
was a handsome lad. He and Mary fell in love with each
other and were engaged to be married. George wanted to
be a planter. So his father bought for him this long strip
of land facing the shore from Willow Run to Indian
Head and built for his son the house whose cellar you
have seen. The China merchant brought from the East a
beautiful embroidered robe of silk which was to be his
daughter's wedding garment.

Suddenly a great contention arose among the people
over the king's taxes. The peace of every town was broken
by seditious acts. The spirit of revolution was fed by the
sternness of the king's officers. Everywhere two factions
were engaged in a bitter strife the Loyalists and the
Revolutionists.

Naturally the families of George and Mary were
opposed to each other. The rich China merchant paid
oppressive taxes, the lumberman was a favorite of the
king. These friends had a quarrel and thereafter they
were enemies. So it came about that the engagement be-
tween George and Mary was broken.

It was a hard time for lovers. All high emotion was
soured in the political ferment all save Mary's. She lived

256 .FROM STORES OF MEMORY

on with a broken heart. Soon the boy married a girl of
his own political faith and went to live in the new house.
The evening of the wedding Mary, dressed in her silken
robe, drowned herself in the bay.

That night the young man and his bride were terri-
fied by sounds the like of which they had not heard be-
fore the sounds of rustling silk and stealthy footsteps in
their room. They lit the candles. They could see no in-
truder. They looked in the closets and under the bed.
They bolted the bedroom door. They put out the candles.
Again those stealthy footsteps and the whisper of rustling
silk so close to them that it seemed to brush the bed-
clothes. They could not sleep.

Night after night the ghost came. They left the
place but the ghost did not move. It clung to the house
on which the girl had set her heart. Other tenants came.
Their sleep was murdered by the stealthy footsteps and
the rustling silk. They moved away. The house got a bad
name. It was called No Man's House because nobody
would live under its roof. It fell into decay and became
the resort of the owl and the bittern. People came far to
look at this home of a celebrated mystery.

Now, that was the yarn I spun as we walked through
the woods together. This part of my tale was invented.
The rest of it is infernally true.

It was a clear, warm summer night. We went to bed
early. Our sleeping room was on the west end of the house.
Two French windows, at the end, opened on a balcony as
yet unscreened. A quarter of a mile away, across an open
meadow, through these windows we could see the big
house of our nearest neighbor, Mr. Henry F. Shoemaker,
a New York banker. A large window on the south over-
looked the Sound and a planted ravine with a brook,

MY FAMILY GHOST 2JJ

tarrying in fountain pools, on its short way to the bay
shore.

My wife's bed was near the balcony, mine near the
door from the hall. We went to sleep with doors and
windows open and a delightful sense of the stillness of the
summer night.

I had been asleep some time when I was suddenly
awakened. I listened, trying to discover what sound had
broken my sleep. Solemnly the great clock in the hall
struck twelve. Then I heard stealthy footsteps on the rug
beyond my bed and the rustle of silken garments. My
heart began thumping. Great Scott! Here was a mystery
a psychological mystery. "Was there really a ghost look-
ing for a job on this property? I lifted my perspiring head
and stared into the darkness. I could see nothing. But
again I heard the stealthy footsteps and the rustling silk.
What was I to do? Fortunately my wife was sound asleep.
The ghost came to the side of my bed so close that I could
feel its silken winding sheet flick against the bedclothes.
I must do something. I had to get out of bed to reach the
electric buttons. At the moment that was not to be
thought of. I could not have done it. The ghost was walk-
ing, walking, walking in the black darkness. I hit upon
an idea intended neither to aggravate the ghost nor to
waken my wife, who was a nervous woman. I resorted to
a whisper.

"Who's there?"

(At this point I utter a sudden piercing cry in imita-
tion of the answer I got and everyone jumps nervously.
Then I proceed.)

That whisper was a great mistake. Hell broke loose.
If a flaming thunderbolt had hit the house, the result
could not have been more alarming. The shriek of the

2j8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

ghost was like an ax hitting the small of my back. I
jumped free of the bed and fell heavily back upon it.

My wife awoke in a panic.

"Good Lord above! What made you yell so in your
sleep?" she cried out, in a frightened voice.

It soothed me a little to have company.

"I didn't yell/' I answered.

"For heaven's sake! Who did?"

"I don't know/'

"Hadn't you better find out?"

Find out! Hell's bells! That was like a woman. I knew
that my time had come. I had a reputation for courage
in the family and I must either keep or drop it. I could
hear my wife shivering. I began to get angry and when
a man loses his temper he will do anything. He loses all
discretion.

Someone ought to write on the power of anger as an
agent in human affairs. It is the mainspring of valor. A
man needs the help of "righteous indignation" to face
death at the cannon's mouth. I was angry and so I forgot
my prudence.

That damned ghost had made me trouble enough. I
would have it out with her then and there. I threw the
cover aside and leaped to the floor. I did not care what
happened. I got to the wall where the electric buttons
were but in my excitement I could not locate them. I
was feeling with both hands when my wife cried out:

"I hear stealthy footsteps and the rustle of silk. Turn
on the light. Turn on the light!"

That made it so much easier for me! Frantically I
explored the surface of that wall. Soon I found the but-
tons and up came the light. We could see no ghost, but
as our eyes searched the room in silence I heard those
stealthy footsteps in the hall outside the door. I pushed

MY FAMILY GHOST

the button that lighted the hall and, quivering in a sort
of chill, stepped through its open doorway. There about
ten feet before me stood the ghost. Its silken robe hit the
wall and rug, rustling loudly as it whirled to face me. It
was a big peacock with a long, plumed tail.

I learned next day that the large peacock herd of
my nearest neighbor had got the habit of roosting in and
upon the house every night while it was being built. This
bird had come over with his mates, flown to the balcony,
and entered our room.

It resented my whispered query and, startled by it,
had shattered the silence with that piercing cry.

PART V
ON THE CREST

24. THE EVE SCANDAL

IN the village where I spent the most of my boyhood,
far up the street beyond our home, a certain rich man
lived in a little house. I will call him Eliphalet Baynes.
He was an old man. Almost every day we saw him pass-
ing. He had many grudges and often if any of us were
in the dooryard he would stop to speak of some rascal
that he knew. "Thank God my soul is saved," he would
add and then he would rush along in an odd kind of
canter. It reminded me of the curious antics of my boy-
hood when I tried to imagine that I was a horse. He was
gray-headed, nearly toothless, and vain of his strength.
That canter was his way of displaying it. He had a wife
but I think that no one, except her husband, ever saw
her. She was a mystery in that neighborhood. After many
years I solved the mystery and I propose to tell here how
it was done. I had to go back to the Garden of Eden to
do it. How strange that the ancient story of the fall of
man should be connected with a story in my own neigh-
borhood!

I find myself inclined to say that the greatest event
of my time was the discovery of radium by Marie Curie.
It is a statement which may well astonish those who read
it. She drove a stake that marks the beginning of a new
era in human history. In her strength of will and her
understanding she demonstrated the rights of woman. It
was a conclusive demonstration.

To justify my position I have to make a journey into
the past and briefly present the story of woman. I got it

26*

264 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

in many months of careful research. It is an astonishing
story, and more astonishing even than the story itself is
the fact that few people know anything about it. I gath-
ered the items in my notebooks in chronological order.
They had interested me for a reason which I now present.

When my young manhood began I had a sense of
chivalry like that of a medieval knight. I would fight
anyone at the drop of a hat for the least insult to a lady
in my presence, and did once. I had gone into training
with Jack Dempsey, the nonpareil, and was, I thought, a
somewhat formidable person. I hated and despised the
bovine man who couldn't forget his sex. I laugh at all that
now and wonder how I managed to live through it.

Yet I know very well how this old-time chivalry got
into me and why it stayed with me. It arose from my
great friendship with that wise and gentle woman my
mother,

I remember hearing her say to a young man who
was about to be married: "If you want her to be right
you must be right yourself. She will want a hero and you
must be it. If you can keep her love and respect you will
be almost sure to fashion her life for her. However great
and strong you may be she will try to keep up with
you. The great desire of a woman is to keep up."

My sense of chivalry was rooted in my deep affection
for this mother and for the girl whom I married when I
was twenty-two years of age Miss Anna Detmar Schultz.
What an inspiration I found in her love and help and
devotion!

So when I ran upon little items in the story of woman
in dusty old histories they engaged my interest.

My purpose is not to disturb anyone's faith in the
story of what occurred in the Garden of Eden, but only
to indicate its tremendous effect upon human history.

THE EVE SCANDAL 265

If it were fiction it would be universally condemned
as incredible. The fully developed man of today would
surely decide that God's act was wholly out of character
unjust to the man and the woman who were planned
for doing exactly what they did. Moreover, the serpent's
conversational powers would seem to have been mis-
placed. We know that the serpent never had the organs
of speech.

Many good people believe that the story is the
product of inspiration, and there is much to be said for
a faith that can silence the intellect. The story is a part
of the Bible and I yield to no man in my respect for that
book. Perhaps I may be permitted to say that I have never
felt any pride in Adam as an ancestor. He put the guilt
on the woman and made a mess of human life for ages.

No one will question my right to say that a stationary
thing in a world of change excites our curiosity. That
old tree in the Garden of Eden has stood since there was
any ground to stand on. It has flung the longest, blackest
shadow this world has known. Most of the illustrious
birds of poetry have sung in its branches.

Now this is what happened according to history well
authenticated. Eve acquired in the first garden a Reputa-
tion which has followed her through all the ages with a
club in its hands. On the unsupported evidence of one
man, she was convicted of being the introducer of sin to
this world and the prime cause of death and anxious toil.
Whatever we may think of the verdict, it led to a condi-
tion as to the reality of which there is overwhelming evi-
dence. She practically ruined the human race and branded
the foreheads of her daughters with the scarlet letter of
disgrace.

There is no question as to the effect of that story in
the third chapter of Genesis upon human history. Take,

266 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

for instance, the rib theory of the origin of Eve, accord-
ing to which an unimportant part of the body of Adam
was converted into a woman. This, naturally, gave her
an inferior social standing. From believing it herself she
acquired the complex of inferiority. She got the habit of
accepting whatever came as her proper portion. It was
her reputation as the deviser of sin and the cause of all
the woes of man that kept her down near the donkey
level.

He who has been to Egypt or Palestine and has seen
a little donkey struggling under a heavy burden on top of
which sits a big, husky Mohammedan with a busy leather
whip in his hand, has seen a picture not unlike that of
man and woman in the ancient world. He had no doubt
that he was pleasing the Lord when he put her to the
hardest tasks and struck her with a club or a lash.

It is easy to understand why, when the toil bore
heavily upon him and bread was hard to get, he should
feel like beating his wife for had not woman brought
these troubles upon him? When she pleaded for mercy he
was often deaf because he remembered what Adam got
when he hearkened to his wife.

Man had to believe that woman was the cause of all
his woes, and he kept her in mind of her responsibility.
All through the deep valley of unnumbered ages he held
a grudge against her, Whether the old story be truth or
fiction, there is no fiction in the woes of woman which
came as the fruit of it. That is the most shameful and
well-authenticated chapter in all history.

Man wore his hands and racked his body with toil,
but his brain suffered ages of enforced idleness. His brow
was always wet, but there was never any perspiration on
his intellect. The state told him what he had to believe.
If an individual did any independent thinking as the

THE EVE SCANDAL 267

prophets were wont to do he got his head cut off. It
didn't pay and there were few who indulged in that un-
holy pastime.

Individuality might be popular for a time, but it was
unprofitable. A head raised above the dead level of the
crowd soon fell into the basket, and except for a memory
of what had passed between the dead lips, it was out of
business. How remote and impossible this kind of thing
would seem to be! It is strange that there are still descend-
ants of the nomad tribesmen, who lived thousands of
years before Christ and are now wandering under the
same sun that delayed its flight over Ajalon. There are
thousands of them in America who would slay the
prophets, but for the fact that it has now become a dan-
gerous form of recreation.

The Mohammedans retain the controlled intellect and
the ancient grudge against woman, still a slave whose face
may be seen only by her own family. They continue to
slay the prophets.

Of old, woman did not choose she was chosen. She
was simply an animated rib bone one of many wives,
concubines, slaves in the caravan. Divorce was a privilege
of the husband only. A woman suspected of adultery was
tried by the ordeal of bitter water to see how she stood
it. The water was embittered by the sweepings of the
floor of the tabernacle. It was a poisonous, deadly ordeal.
The inference I get from the sixth chapter of Numbers
is this: if she began to rot with fever, she was guilty.
Woman was completely dependent. An inscription on a
tablet in ancient Babylon says that a woman who gads
about and neglects her house and belittles her husband
shall be thrown into water. The man who gadded about
and belittled his wife was only doing his duty.

268 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Now, certain critics say that the story of the fall
came from Babylon.

It is obvious that a woman had no right to resent
rough treatment. She had to stay at home and bend to the
task and keep her mouth shut.

In the Apostles of Renan a man who studied his-
tory with unusual ardor we find that among the He-
brews "woman's childhood ended at twelve and her old
age began at twenty-four and marriage was slavery/'
until a new and a great teacher had begun to change the
spirit of man. I present in direct quotation a summary
of Kenan's observations:

"Women were naturally attracted, their position in
society being humble and precarious, to a Christian com-
munity which offered them protection. Widows especially
had had few rights which anyone respected. Many were
opposed to giving them religious instruction. The Talmud
spoke of the gossiping and inquisitive widow as a pest of
mankind. The new religion offered them sure and honor-
able asylum. The nuns and the sisters of charity were one
of the first creations of the church, and the word 'widow*
became a synonym for one devoted to religious work."

The historian, who was himself a skeptic, declares:
"Woman never had a religious conscience, a moral indi-
viduality or an opinion of her own previous to Chris-
tianity."

It would appear that this new faith, near the centers
of its power, had begun to mitigate the curse.

In about thirty-five years after their great Champion
had given up his life we begin to learn of notable women.
In certain of them St. Paul had discovered great qualities.
There was a deaconess of the name of Phoebe who lived
at the port of Corinth of whom he wrote: "She is a sue-

THE EVE SCANDAL 269

corer of many and of mine own self." It Is evident that
Paul esteemed her highly.

He trusted other women with important work, no-
tably Priscilla. There were these also who won more or
less distinction in the work of the church: Damaris of
Athens, Chloe of Corinth, Mary, Tryphena, Persis and
Tryphosa of Rome, and Appia of Colossae. Doubtless
these women were friends of the great Apostle, but his
approval was qualified. In all assemblies they were to hold
their tongues. Why? Had not the first of their sex used
her tongue to talk with a serpent? Still, for many years
after Christ had left the world, Roman women were still
in the shadow of the ancient curse. In the Clementine
Homilies it is expressly declared that woman was natu-
rally inferior to man.

Tertullian A.D. 160 addressed these words to a
number of women: "Woman, thou shouldst always be
dressed in mourning and in rags. Thou shouldst offer to
our eyes only a penitent drowned in tears. Thus shouldst
thou pay ransom for thy fault in bringing the human race
to ruin. Thou art the gate by which the Demon enters."

In the first three centuries many of the disabilities of
women under the law were removed. The adoption of
females was first permitted by a Decree of Diocletian in
291. Claudius made it possible for her to make a will and
a contract. She had become almost a human being.

Before the time of St. Jerome woman had acquired
some skill in climbing the social ladder. She could indulge
in a degree of dalliance without being drowned like a
superfluous cat. Christian women were no longer content
with the beauty of the spirit. They bathed in scented
water. They were mostly patricians, and they clung to
youth with paint and powder and were inclined to over-
emphasize their charms. They wore silk and fine linen and

2/0 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

dainty slippers. The letters of the good St. Jerome a
learned man and a great phrasemaker to Paulina and
others lay down some illuminating rules of etiquette and
behavior for women. The flash of his stinging periods
gives us a bright light on social conditions in the Eternal
City at that time. He writes, in A.D. 384:

"Let long-haired youths, dandified and wanton,
never be seen under your roof. Repel a singer as you
would some bane. Do not arrogate to yourself a widow's
license and appear in public preceded by a host of
eunuchs."

It would seem that it was bad form for a widow to
have any man, except a eunuch, in her service, and that
singers were not to be trusted.

Again he writes:

"And do not out of affectation follow the sickly
tastes of married ladies who now pressing their teeth to-
gether, now keeping them apart, speak with a lisp and
purposely clip their words because they fancy that to
pronounce them naturally is a mark of country breed-
ing."

At last women had begun to take on a resemblance
to certain of their modern sisters. He complains of women
"with wardrobes crammed with dresses and who change
their gowns from day to day." He decries "the women
who paint their eyes and lips and whose chalked faces are
like those of idols. Upon their cheeks every chance tear
leaves a furrow. They heap their heads with hair not their
own.' 5

Here is a rare piece of general advice as good now
as it was then:

"Beware of itching ears and a blabbing tongue."

Light on the manners of the old city may be found
in this remark: "We, if our food is less appetizing than

THE EVE SCANDAL

usual, get sullen. If the water brought us Is a little too
warm we break the cup and overturn the table, and
scourge the servant in fault until the blood comes."

These days that kind of rumpus in a Christian houser
hold would have resounding echoes. Yet Jerome speaks of
this violent behavior as if it were a fashion of the time.
We come now to a point on which this good man differs
sharply from the modern view:

"Some content themselves with saying that a Chris-
tian virgin should not bathe along with eunuchs and
married women. I wholly disapprove of baths for a virgin
of full age. Such an one should blush and feel overcome
at the idea of seeing herself undressed."

He recommends a "cold chastity," and in his view
baths add fuel to a dangerous fire.

Among the sequestered tribes of the Far North
women still suffered from the taint of Eve. The provinces
were slow to remove the shackles of ancient custom. In
the dark history of the northern peoples we get only
flashes of light on the unhappy figure of woman. They
are sufficient, however, to show her tragic part in the
drama of life. The missionaries were at work there in the
North, telling the old story of woman's sin and the fall
of man, and the better story of the great Forgiver and
His atonement. She was dependent and under tutelage.
When Canute reigned, a woman lost her nose and ears for
adultery. I think it is true that there had been no law in
England which provided punishment for men guilty of
this offense.

Under Athelstan a female slave convicted of theft
was burned alive by her sisters. Three times we learn in
the ecclesiastical legislation of England that if a woman
scourges her female slave to death she must do penance.

2/2 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

Woman had learned to use the lash from which she had
suffered so long.

Under Ethelbert wives were sold. A law was enacted
that if a man carry off a freeman's wife, the thief at his
own expense must provide another wife for the aggrieved
party. Under Magna Charta a woman could not accuse
a man of murder unless he had killed her husband.

Thus it appears that it was the greatest of misfor-
tunes to be born a woman. Is there any reason for it, save
that of her enforced moral inferiority because she had
inflicted sin and death and toil upon the world?

Bruised and trodden, like the serpent that shared her
sin, can we wonder at the bitterness of her spirit when,
bent and old, with clawlike hands and withered face, her
tongue became the dread of her neighbors and her curse
a forerunner of evil? Then the witch, and the witch-
finder going up and down the roads of England and other
lands with a divining rod in his hand the burnings, the
hangings, the drownings, the smotherings. What a strange
and tragic history culminating in this horrid climax! Even
in the seventeenth century Cotton Mather, of our own
country, solemnly believed in witchcraft.

On February i, 1549, Michelangelo wrote a letter to
his nephew Leonardo, in which he said:

"Thou requirest someone who will be in subjection
to thee and who will not desire to put on airs and go
every day to parties and weddings, for where there are
constant festivities it is easy for a woman to become a
wanton/*

Women were beginning to enjoy life, but Congreve
speaks of the low estimation of women in Elizabeth's time
as a reason for the small figure they make in Shakespeare's
dialogues; Swift scorned them; Addison laughed at them

THE EVE SCANDAL 273

as half-witted, amusing creatures made only to be the
playthings of man.

Until Victoria came to the throne of England its
women except those of wealth or of noble and royal
blood still labored under the ancient curse. Their igno-
rance astonishes the student of history. Certain Puritan
women, stimulated by their interest in the Bible, had
learned to read, but even when the nineteenth century
began the ability to read was, it would seem, a rare
achievement among women of small means. What but the
condition of woman has maintained and still maintains
in Europe a peasantry dwelling in thick darkness?

The nuns had demonstrated, as far back as the sixth
century and especially in the ninth, that women were
capable of intellectual development. Victoria decided that
the time for a new deal had come. She and others aided
Frederick Denison Maurice in the founding of Queen's
College for Women in 1848. Soon after that their intel-
lectual life began to have an effect upon the world.

Many of the women who came early to the colony
of Massachusetts Bay were densely ignorant. It is surpris-
ing that for more than two centuries they remained in
that condition. They were, I think, mainly a high-tem-
pered lot, some of whom used the scourge too freely on
the indentured females in their service. Their background
had not been one to encourage a sweet and gracious
temper.

From an essay in the Atlantic Monthly of February,
1859, I present an astonishing paragraph relating to the
history of woman in the colony of Massachusetts Bay:

"It is well established by early deeds and documents
that a large proportion [of the women] could not read
or write and in Boston, especially, for one hundred and
fifty years the public schools included boys only. After

2J4 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

1789 the girls were sent to school in the summer and not
until 1828 were all distinctions wiped out in the Boston
common schools/ 9

When we consider how the character, standing, and
power of woman has advanced since the founding of
Queen's College in 1848, we can measure the loss that the
world has suffered now so apparent in the wisdom of
Queen Victoria, in the work of Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
ing, George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Marie Curie.

Returning to the old village with this knowledge in
my mind, I went to the house of Eliphalet Baynes. It is
not my purpose to belittle his character. He was a church
member and no doubt an honest man, a good part of
whose life had been spent in the Old Testament,

It is a Sabbath Day. The chickens in the dooryard
seem to step softly. The old cock has a solemn, religious
look in his eye. The dog wags his tail hopefully, but in
silence. There is a faint, sad whisper in the sheltering tree-
tops. I feel the brooding spirit of the place. I enter the
door. The Master sits in a gloomy, shabby room, an open
Bible in his lap. He has been reading in the Old Testa-
ment. He does not arise and welcome me. He is in his
Sunday clothes. He has a hairy, rough skin, a stern face,
and keen gray eyes.

He owns a mortgage on many acres of the country-
side. He quarreled with a man as to the ownership of an
umbrella worth not more than fifty cents. For years the
two have not spoken to each other. He has a sublime con-
fidence in his mind. He boasts that he never changes it.
He lives in the time of Abraham. His sole aim is to please
the Lord. As to what his neighbors may think of him he
has no concern whatever. A tall clock ticks its mournful
warning. I get a glimpse of his wife through an open

THE EVE SCANDAL 275

door. She is bent with toil a melancholy drudge who has
never dared to have an opinion of her own.

Partly to test his generosity I speak of the beautiful
cherries on the tree in his garden.

"Cherries!" he exclaims scornfully. "I am not think-
ing of cherries, sir. I am thinking of my immortal soul/ 5

I left with the impression that one may think too
much of his immortal soul. One is always thinking of his
liver when it ceases to do its duty. If this man were the
King of America many heads would be falling into the
basket.

At last the cloud of mystery that surrounded his
wife had passed. Like her sisters of old, she had been a
slave. Even late in the nineteenth century and in this
enlightened land of ours the old story of the fall had been
doing its work.

25. ADVERTISING

AMERICANS have a special right to use the language of
commerce. It is easily understood and with no apology I
use it in this little piece.

One thing I seem to have learned in all this living
I have done. It is the fact that there is an incalculable
power in advertising.

The young arrive and are soon eager customers for
the goods we have to offer. What do we advertise as stuff
that is durable and worth the price? It is good to believe
in honor and all high things, but we must also advertise
their value in our talk and conduct or the young may not
want them. I do not recommend that we turn our homes
into Sunday schools. The job must be expertly done. Liver
pills, tooth paste, and breakfast food are not so much in
need of advertising as truth, honor, and virtue. Yet, these
bigger things have been sadly neglected and the world of
today is in desperate need of them. The young do not
forget, and this kind of advertising is mainly for the
young. No doubt there are some who inherit big things
but most people must get what they have, and their
guide is advertising.

Nearly forty years have passed since Joseph Pulitzer,
one of the biggest and kindest men I have known, gave
me a limited leave of absence from my jdesk and my good
friends in the editorial rooms of the World. That leave
has continued unto this day. I was near forty years of
age when I turned my back upon success if that word
applies to a good job and a large and growing salary to

276

ADVERTISING 2/7

take a strange, difficult, and unpromising road. Often it
led to poverty and got one no further than the garret. I
admit that it was a venturous undertaking.

Mr. Pulitzer is said to have remarked that I was a
strong man with a hidden, unsuspected talent for idiocy.
I soon discovered that he was right. But the money stand-
ard of success did not much appeal to me. I never knew
how to use my intelligence in the presence of a large sum
of money. It embarrassed me. We didn't get along well
together. I could live peaceably with $200 a week, but
when a large sum jumped on me I didn't know what to
do about it.

Anyhow, I awoke one morning and found my fear
of poverty gone everything swept away in a night. Kind
friends came and wanted to know what they could do to
help me. Among some of them I probably achieved a repu-
tation as an idiot. One can get that without advertising.
Still, I have always had a comfortable home and many
good friends and have found joy in living.

I did well in newspaper work but was not quite sat-
isfied. It was largely because when I was a boy certain
things were advertised in my home and neighborhood.
Good literature was one of them. It was a literature that
confirmed the teaching of my home and of honored
friends outside it. From them I had learned that character
was the big thing. Dickens and Thackeray were ably ad-
vertising this truth. So was history. When one has ac-
quired a reasonably good character, which is little more
in a good neighborhood than a love for the things that
have been well advertised in his presence, he will become
its servant. He finds himself obeying imperative demands.
One is that he discover a task which will give the fullest
possible expression to the best there is in him. In the plain
talk of commerce, he must find a chance to display and

2/8 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

advertise the goods he has acquired and sell them to other
people. I began to see that advertising was a part of the
big plan of life. At any rate, I was giving a lot of my time
to very trivial stuff: a lady with forty lovers telling just
why she had chosen one of them; the man who had made
a million dollars in some ingenious manner. That was the
kind of thing which had engaged my thought.

I felt that I could do better with a different kind of
task. I thought that I had found it when I turned my
back on a rather handsome kind of success. Probably I
was wrong, but of this I am sure: I may have misjudged
myself but not the good people who tried to make a man
of me.

I would not have it understood that all the people in
the old neighborhood were wise and above reproach. Some
pretty bad advertising was done there.

I remember a distinguished man who did his drink-
ing privately and often reeled in public. He would explain
to his friends that he was troubled with vertigo while, in
a breath, he advertised his lack of sobriety and veracity.
One saw some interesting types of advertising in that vil-
lage and countryside.

There were even poor men who sat in certain of the
doorways of Main Street chewing tobacco and advertising
their laziness and their love of leisure. How the people of
that country despised the lazy man!

My friend Richard Eddy Sykes told me of a man
who achieved fame with a single stroke of advertising.
He had heard a minister describe the torments of the
damned and then had said: "I don't believe that any man
or woman will have to fry forever in hell. To begin with,
there ain't no human constitution could stan' it."

That reminds me of a lot of advertising of immeas-
urable value to America that came along while I was a

ADVERTISING 2/9

young man. Whatever we may think about religion and
its Ten Commandments, one fact is undeniable: When
the pews are empty the prisons are full. We cannot live
happily without truth, honor, good faith, and a respect
for the rights of other people. About all the church does
is to advertise the value of these things, and God knows
the world was never so much in need of them. If there is
any atheist in that kind of work, I have not heard of
him. The church is the only big organized force that ably
advertises this line of goods, and the price is within the
reach of all. The man who gets possession of them, by
any means, is a better citizen.

I propose to present here one or two old-fashioned
ideas, aware that a time has come when it is dangerous
to do it.

The time of my young manhood was distinguished by
a good quality of citizenship. The church was a fighting
machine. I remember when an indecent show appeared on
the stage of a Brooklyn theater, Beecher, Talmage, and
some leading citizens went to the mayor and the show was
swept off the boards. Crime was not a serious problem. As
one reason for it, I mention two great advertisers of the
things that make for good citizenship.

Moody and Sankey were advertising human kindness,
the good things related to it, and even bigger things. These
men exercised a tremendous power in extending and es-
tablishing good citizenship. They reached the Gladys Mc-
Knights, the Dillingers, the Lucianos, and many of that
ilk. I think that tens of thousands could testify to the
correctness of this opinion.

More than any other nation, America depends on
the good quality of its citizenship. Our democracy is noth-
ing but an elaborate system of credit. It has to trust the
average man. If his honor fails our democracy fails.

280 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

I remember an evening In Louisville, when I had noth-
ing else to do, I went to hear Moody and Sankey. Curi-
osity impelled me, for I had little faith in their emotional
appeal. I was amazed by what I saw and heard. There was
no oratory, no shouting. Moody intensely human stood
before an immense crowd and talked to it in a friendly,
fatherly tone. In three minutes I said to myself, Here is
a great human being who knows the world and any man
would be the better for his friendship and his counsel.

It was more than fifty years ago and I can only try
to tell what happened. It was about like this: He told a
little story of a man in desperate despondency. He had
gone wrong. No work, no friends, no desire to live. Money
was the thing he craved and didn't care how he got it.
He told of what he had said to the man and of what the
man had said to him. No, he didn't mind being prayed
for. He would try anything. Then the prayer so simple,
so eloquent that ten thousand people were in tears. The
words that followed had an immense effect:

"That man, now a respected and prosperous citizen,
is on this platform."

Who wouldn't want to be prayed for by such a man
as Moody? A curious, affectionate relation was established
between himself and his audience. Every man and woman
was made to feel that he was a brother eager to help. We
must not forget that it is necessary to win the heart of
the common folk before we can influence their minds and
their conduct.

Moody has long since gone and there seems to have
been no one equal to the great work that he did. More
Moody's would have meant fewer bandits, fewer defalca-
tions, fewer corrupt officials, fewer robbed and bankrupt
cities. The advertising that he did has been sadly neglected
in recent years. Is it because our colleges and universities

ADVERTISING 28l

have been teaching us to look down upon that kind of
thing?

Is it not true that In America the moral rectitude
of the toiler is quite as important as the scholarship of
the rich and the well-to-do? I am inclined to think that
it is even more important.

We old fellows are a bit disturbed by what we see
around us. We are told that honest frankness as to the
truths of life Is good for the soul. Does it not tend to
prove to the lower half of the world that the upper half
behaves like cats and dogs? Is there not some reason for
this in their divorces, the books they read, the plays they
patronize, and even in their general behavior?

For a time like this it is bad advertising with even
a little danger in it, for it seems to have helped in caus-
ing the lower half to regard the upper half as its legiti-
mate prey?

I am this kind of American. I think that the print-
ing press, the parent, the play, and the professor should
be advertising media for a sound democracy, and for the
faith, honor, courage, strength, and virtue of a good
citizen.

If any college or university is falling short of that in
any particular, it is indeed a questionable asset.

In my youth the girls were small advertisers. They
went in for scholarship and music and domestic economy.
Those girls knew how to cook and to make an attractive
home. They read the best literature and some of them
were brilliant talkers. I knew one whose wit would keep
the table in a roar. How often I have quoted her!

They liked the physical side of life. They knew the
charm of a body artfully draped and loved to dance all
night, but their advertising was mainly for things in the
upper levels of the human body. There was no double-

282 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

column spread next to sensational matter, such as one
may see now, especially at the bathing beaches. Just what
are these girls advertising? It is not, on the whole, so good.
Still, the fact remains that all this is up to the boys.
If their demand is for that kind of girl they will get
it. Parents used to advertise to their young the home worth
having a happy home, like that they lived in, founded
upon love and honor and good faith. Children came and
a growing happiness was there. After all, what are we
seeking but happiness?

26. THE HEART OF THE WORLD

Vv HAT is the one big thing I have seen? It is the great
love story of the winning of the heart of the world by
speed and power. My work is nearly done and there are
things that an old man would like to say to those corning
to the great tasks of our democracy.

The gas engine can fling a thousand miles behind
it in three hours. It laughs at the flying cloud and the
laggard hurricane.

The first thing to be said is this: The hands on the
clock still hold their pace. The growth of the .tree and
the man proceeds as slowly as ever. With countless uni-
versities and learned professors, the world has been trying
to speed up the making of men. The effort has not been
quite successful. The pace toward the full stature of man-
hood cannot be hurried.

Big men are not quite so plentiful even as they were
in my boyhood when we had them in my little town.

One is awed by the mighty machines that hurl us
through the heavens and dive, like leviathan, for hidden
journeys under the sea. They are as cruel and destructive
as they are wonderful. They have won the heart of the
world, but are they also to break it?

Alarm is in the hearts of men. Are these machines
to cut down the great tree of civilization whose uproot-
ing might easily make this planet the home of silence and
of death?

In many nations a kind of gasoline method has been

283

284 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

applied to the making of men and they suggest the above
query.

Another kind of speed and power is breaking down
the old barriers built by the blood and sweat of humanity
toiling upward for two thousand years. It is the mighty
stream of materialism flowing out of continental Europe,
where dictators have come to power because of a lack
of big men to head them off. They are backed by vast
armies. Many of Europe's sociologists disavow reason in
favor of the passions and the instincts.

"The essence of our minds/ 3 says the too-eminent
Mueller Freienfels, "lies not in intellectual understanding
but in its biological function as a means for the preserva-
tion of life."

He seems to speak for the Teutonic philosophy of our
time represented by Freud, Weber, Scheler, Mannheim,
Spengler, and Schmitt.

What a rallying around the generative organs! Why
do we not walk on our hands so that our heads may be
down near the dust where they belong?

Why do these gentlemen go to a university for that
kind of stuff? I recall many who got it without trying
and landed in jail. The prison is its natural home. These
philosophers teach that the state is absolutely independent
of all moral considerations save its own a predatory crea-
ture capable of turning falsehood into truth and evil into
righteousness.

They put it over with scholastic slang "dynamic,
concept, complex" and it sounds profound. The dumb
crowd with no understanding of it take it to be true. The
truth is that this hired philosophy is about the shallowest,
rottenest mess of rubbish the world has known of a piece
with putting the church in bondage and Jesus Christ in
a strait- jacket.

THE HEART OF THE WORLD 285

Carl Schmitt, in liis Der Begriff des I*oUtischen 9 makes
the state independent of moral codes. Can it be true that
the state can do no wrong?

The much-read Oswald Spengler, in his Jabre der
Entscheidung, says: "Man is a predatory animal. When I
call man a predatory animal whom do I insult, man or
the animal? For the great predatory animals are noble
creatures of the most perfect kind without the duplicity
of human morality founded on weakness."

So we learn that we are even beneath a cage of tigers
or a herd of orangutans. And what predatory weaklings
were Paul, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Tenny-
son, Goethe, Schiller, Lincoln, Emerson, Sir Moses Monte-
fiore, Rockefeller, and Carnegie, all so predatory that they
gave their strength or a large part of their fortunes for
the good of mankind.

Look at this cage of inferior animals and then form
an opinion of Spengler and his followers to whom morality
is mere pretension. There is one lesson Mr. Spengler should
have learned from the beast that he admires.

As Johan Huizinga, the Dutch historian, has pointed
out in his able book In the Shadow of To-morrow, ani-
mals fight only for peace or meat, never for the sake of
fighting.

From Professor Huizinga we learn that on the in-
stallation of a new chair for Germany the Reich commis-
sioner was thus reported:

"It is high time to have done with the ludicrous
theory that anything less than the hard necessity of assur-
ing the position of the State could determine what is and
what is not justice. The earth belongs to the heroic not
to the decadent/*

There is a somewhat satanic note in that declaration.

The question: to whom does the world belong? is one

286 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

in which America is vitally concerned. Could we hold our
peace if it seemed likely to be deeded to Satan?

So we may well ask ourselves, are speed and power to
be our masters or our servants?

I have spoken of the noisy shallows in the stream
of life but there are vast stretches of deep water not much
moved by them. Certain nations of Europe have been so
tortured by war that their leaders have lost their mental
poise.

There is that in the blood and spirit of man which,
in the long range, will hold the ground he has gained
a wisdom, a divinity heard and felt in mighty voices
when the need arises and the trumpets call on the slow,
slow march of history.

27. THE SUMMING UP

I BELONG to the time of John L. Sullivan and Lydia Pink-
ham. John hit above the belt and Lydia below it. John
was an honest man. He did not demand or get a fortune
for a fight. I never knew Lydia, but I am sure that she
believed she was right. The world is in great need of
honest fighting folk and honest advertising. The millen-
nium is still in the imagination of the ancient prophets but
no one has prophesied a hellennium. They had one in old
Rome and it began with the exaltation of amusement. I
sometimes fear that we may get in a like trend.

Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth arrived riding on ele-
phantine incomes. Mr. Dempsey's amounted to perhaps
half a million a year. Mr. Ruth was not so fortunate. Still,
he was doing well. His income was probably larger than
that of some of the ablest lawyers in the United States.
We used to read with deep interest of Mr. Evarts's tri-
umphs in court and of Mr. Ingalls's wit in the Senate.
Home runs in a court or the Senate chamber are now of
secondary importance. Comparatively few people hear of
them. For the first time, since the Circus Maximus in old
Rome closed its gates, fun has seemed to be a little big-
ger than justice or the public welfare.

I can enjoy a good boxing match and I am a base-
ball fan. No doubt the crowd gets relief from the stress
and strain of life in such scenes, but I wonder if it is
quite wholesome for a great reward like that of half a
million dollars to go to a fighter for an hour's work.
It does violence to our sense of proportion. It puts the

287

288 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

physical man on a pedestal where he is a little out of place.
Even a number of our college students are attracted to the
ring. It gives unwarranted exaltation to the material side
of life.

I was one of those simple-minded Victorians schooled
to think that statesmanship and public service were the
big things. Why, we even thought that success in life was
the reward of mental and moral training, of dignity and
character and personality. Conkling and Elaine and Hoar
and Garfield and Cleveland were our ideals. We got our
inspiration from such misled and commonplace folk as
Dickens, Thackeray, Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, Glad-
stone, Lincoln, Edwin Booth, Tommaso Salvini, and Henry
Irving. What else could we do? The new luminaries had
not arrived. We had no D. H. Lawrence, no Aldous Hux-
ley, no Caldwell, no Babe Ruth, no Jack Dempsey, no
Ely Culbertson, and our theaters were very different.

We simpletons of that remote time got the notion
that a scrupulous rectitude was necessary to success.

There were no robbed and bankrupt cities, no Al
Capones, no Dillingers, no Lucianos, no corrupt bankers
in our time. We did have our Boss Tweed, but he promptly
got what was coming to him. His infamy shocked the
world, and as my father was wont to say, everyone "cussed
and spit when he spoke of him." We clung to our old
notion of the things we called "right" and "wrong."

Suddenly, a new star was shining in the European
sky. It was the German philosopher Nietzsche, with his
opinion that the only big thing was power that could
trample down the weak and that the superman who had
power and the will to use it was the man worth while.
Napoleon Bonaparte, who had crashed through Europe
with his armies, scattering death and destruction, was his
great ideal. Central Europe embraced this philosophy. Cer-

THE SUMMING UP 289

tain of our newspapers and magazines advertised it in a
tone of awe.

It was a new idea, and coming as it did from a Euro-
pean court favorite with an outlandish name, many con-
cluded that it must be the real thing. Everything from
Europe looked good. True, he spent a part of his life in
an asylum for the insane, but half the world seemed to be
in a like trouble. His philosophy was, in the slang of today,
nuts for the nutty.

William II, with an empire more powerful than any
the world had seen, endorsed the idea. He was said to
be the biggest man on earth, and the church of Germany
seemed to fall in line behind him.

Many of our college professors gave their approval
to the ravings of this lunatic philosopher. They called him
"brilliant." No great voices of authority were raised against
him.

We began to see that our old notions of right and
wrong were doomed; that those of Gladstone, Tennyson,
Lincoln, and others had been booked for the junk pile.

I had many a talk with my friend Hamlin Garland
about this looming and prodigious thought that cast a
shadow into the remote future. It astonished and worried
us. We began to fight for the old ideals on the platform,
in essays and books, but with little effect. Soon the great
nations were hurling their power against each other in
a World War, It was indeed the big thing. Compared with
it property was nothing and human life of no more ac-
count than a hill of pismires.

One curious phenomenon of the war had attracted
my attention. The chief champion of Power was very
careful not to have it applied to himself or his family.
Neither William II nor any one of his six sons had a scratch
on them. I called attention to this fact in some lines

290 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

that traveled far, under the title: "The Caref idlest Man
in the World/'

The war ended and Nietzsche's big idea began to bear
fruit of a rather bitter taste. Certain bright young men
said to themselves: "If power that crushes the other fel-
low is the one great thing. 111 go into business with it.
Ill use the power in an automatic pistol to make my living
and the power in a motorcar to get away with it." For
a long time they achieved astonishing success.

Yes, people had brains, but common sense was going
out of use. It was unfashionable. It was unpopular. The
big thing was university sense, professorial sense with a lot
of dictionary words in it. What was the old school of ex-
perience compared with that? True, Franklin, Washing-
ton, and Lincoln had got their learning in that old school,
but we were living in a new world. Nietzsche was the
flower of Germanic culture. No American boy's educa-
tion was quite complete without a degree from a Ger-
man university. We should not forget that America was
founded on common sense a common sense of right and
wrong that was not permitted to be publicly expressed in
Europe.

Now another Germanic flower of culture began to
dominate the scene, viz., Sigmund Freud. He said, in ef-
fect, that no one should be going about with suppressed
desires on his person. The suppression hindered growth
and development. Moral inhibitions were vicious and false.

Here was the license that many were longing for.
They leaped into the arms of this philosophy and kissed
and embraced it. They laughed at the ridiculous codes of
the Victorian era. Divorces multiplied. Children to whom
man and wife were irrevocably committed did not de-
ter them. Children might be disgraced and abandoned,
at least partially, but desires were not to be suppressed.

THE SUMMING UP

Suppose you got a desire to murder someone? They
did not stop to think of such difficulties. Thinking had
gone out of fashion. Thinking was a bore. Leave that
to the professors who had nothing else to do. Americans
were busy making and spending money. They had enough
to do.

Harlotized heroines and bovine rakes appeared on the
stage.

The sex novel, which for a time had been hidden
under the mattress, became popular. It was out in the
sunlight of prosperity.

The critics said that it was a part of life, and there-
fore admissible. Well, so were the sewers under Manhattan
Island a part of life. They were covered up for sanitary
reasons. How about the moral health of the world? Even
ministers and college professors were telling us not to
worry about that. Morality, the clean life, and even re-
ligion had become a joke to many people. Men and women
in fashionable life feathered their arrows of wit with
vile profanity.

It should be clear to all that fashionable folk set the
pace for other people who are still climbing. I remember
a time when Edward VII was behaving in a manner that
shocked the conservative element in the British aristocracy.
It was rather shameful. Certain fashionable folk in our
leading cities, who worshiped the British court, began to
fashion their own behavior after that of the king and his
satellites. It was the "smart" thing to do. The temptation
to imitate those to whom we have to look upward is very
great.

The church was waning. Many pews were empty.
The pulpit no longer appealed to young men of parts.
Still, we old-timers thought the church a noble institu-

292 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

tion allied to great verities. We had that one leg to stand
upon.

George Bernard Shaw arrived. He was a man of wit
who became a fashionable diversion. He said that the
church had no ground to stand upon. Its sanctities were
therefore bunk.

Ridicule is a formidable weapon. Often people ac-
cept its verdict because they do not like to think. That
takes time and trouble. Many have never acquired the
thinking habit. To them the blows of a humorist are like
those of John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey. They end
the argument.

It seemed that we of the old time were all at sea.
Our last leg was gone. Nietzsche and Freud and Shaw, it
seemed to us, had turned the world into a great heap of
rubbish. It was not their fault. Not one of them had
made out a case worthy of the serious attention of any
man of good sense. True, Nietzsche had converted Wil-
liam II of Germany. But William was at best a man of an
unbalanced intellect and, mainly, the converts of Freud
had misplaced minds.

Mr. Shaw never had an idea in his life that he clearly
expressed. We ought not to blame him. He never was a
reasonable human being. He can play many parts, but
not that one. No sane person could ever agree with his
judgments. He favored the plans of Germany to violate
its treaties and grab France and England. He declared the
Soviet government the most perfect on earth, and we
know it to be the blackest despotism. He never did and
never could explain his mental attitude. He is just a merry
jester and gives no reasons. He takes a lonely and unique
position likely to attract the attention of the world. He
had been a great advertiser and his work is worth while
only because of its verbal dexterity.

THE SUMMING UP

A good part of America was like the road to Man-
dalay. There wa'n't no Ten Commandments and there
was a universal thirst. Even boys and girls got tipsy at
the big house parties.

The strumpeters were blowing taps for the seventh
commandment.

Sunday was a day for picnics, merrymaking, and high
speed. Solemn thoughts came only when blood was flow-
ing after a collision. There were little pools of it on many
roads.

Certain newspapers were museums of reported mur-
ders, adulteries, kidnapings, and robberies. A great many
people had ceased to suppress their desires. The racketeer
was flourishing.

The name of the Savior was used mainly to enrich the
diction of the parlor and the dining room in many fashion-
able houses, even by honorable men and women with the
highest respect for law and order.

It is the age of invention and certain people have
invented a new moral to take the place of the old com-
plicated system. One moral is like keeping a bee. It costs
little. No contributions. A bed is better than a pew to
sleep in. A person can get along with only one command-
ment: Be your own God and don't worry. That was the
one moral.

I am not a pious man. I am slow to speak ill of any
person. I believe in a Supreme Being for whom I find in
myself a sense of responsibility. I quarrel with no one
who does not agree with me. I try to find something good
in people. Almost my only vocal religious argument is my
way of living. I enjoy health and strength, to which my
years do not quite entitle me, and the affection of many
friends. I love honor and justice and good faith. These

294 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

are the bone and sinew of good character, and what are
we without that? Its very foundation is good morals.

Now, a church is or ought to be nothing more or
less than a place where men and women can find help in
their great personal problems a place to take serious
thought of them and where wise counsel should be found.
One ought to get real help there.

But a time had come when many people had no taste
for serious thought. The growth of wealth and leisure
had made fun their great objective.

For this reason and for others which I have tried to
indicate America had come to parlous times.

*Many excellent folk dare not live here because their
lives or those of their children have been threatened.

It seems to be true that since human desires were
liberated and the old codes were torn up with the pickax
and hauled away, something has happened akin to throw-
ing open the sewers of Manhattan Island. The moral health
of our people has been impaired and, after all, it is a thing
to be looked after. It is indeed the main thing bigger even
than all our riches.

Now I must give my view of what human life means
to me. We, of the civilized world, are a great fighting
legion. We are enlisted in an endless war of the spirit
not of the sword and gun although at times it may
need their help. If this is not true, life is little more
than a merry jest a world full of chattering monkeys.

One who has the good luck to live the life of a healthy
boy, as I did, will be likely to agree with my theory.
Boys are like the nomad tribesmen of old. They repeat
the history of olden days. They have a revengeful spirit
and the love of rival combat and of adventure. It is Na-
ture's way of preparing them for the great fight. Every
boy must have a hero a leader. If his father is not his

THE SUMMING UP 295

great hero it is almost surely the father's fault, if he be
a strong man. The duties of that job should not be slighted
or deputed. It is better even than being chairman of the
board of a great corporation.

The battle I knew on the old farm with roots and
weeds and stumps and rocks and stones is a symbol of the
interminable war of life. Poverty is only one of many
enemies. It is perhaps the least of them in the great army
of Destructive Passions. First one has to fight and master
his own passions. Uncontrolled, they become the enemies
of all law and order, of health and happiness. They are
what is called "evil." We are in an unending war, first,
with the evil in ourselves and, second, with the evil in
others. These two are the ct|ief staff officers in the great
army of our familiar enemies, of which the commander
in chief is greed.

There are people who think themselves out of danger
far behind the lines. For generations they have enjoyed
ease and prosperity. They have made friends with the
enemy. They have no fear, no knowledge of the battle.
They say that fighting is only for common folk. Sud-
denly they hear the roar of the guns. Shells crash through
the roofs and walls of their houses. They are out in the
danger zone. So it was with Louis XVI and his court when
the storm broke in Versailles. So it was with the Russian
czar and his court.

Always when the world has forgotten that it is at
war and, in conceit and self-satisfaction, has laid aside its
weapons and deserted the field, it has been rudely turned
from its folly by a sudden opening of the gates of hell.

In the first forty years of my life I learned one thing
thoroughly. It was to respect the power of printed words.
I had felt it in the books of the great masters. It had
helped me to shape my life. I had seen it molding the

296 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

opinions of men as they read the newspapers. The cause
of our critical situation lies wholly in printed words. First
those of the degenerate Nietzsche exalting power and the
superman above all other things. The weak were of small
account. They were to be crushed. This Teuton thought
entered the soul of Central Europe and the great Teutonic
power engine began to grow until its creators decided that
it was capable of crushing the world.

For years the church in Austria and Germany, over-
awed by emperors, would seem to have forgotten that it
was a fighting machine and that the time had come for
battle. It is, however, a question whether the church in
Europe ever can be a real fighting machine, being more or
less subject to the will of an emperor or a dictator.

I think that the main troubles of Europe were due
to princes who were never spanked. I fear that the Haps-
burgs and Hohenzollerns had been a little careless. Of
course, they had had no chance to read Mrs. Roosevelt's
articles on bringing up the young. Many American women
could have told them how to do it. Those princes were
prepared to be the partners of God, and the chances are
that the Almighty was not consulted in the matter.

They had to carry around a sense of inherited superi-
ority that stuck out like a load of hay. They needed a
band of adulators to keep them happy. What was the
nation but an emperor, his court, and a big stock of gun
fodder? How many of those men and women have had
their superiority removed and thrown on the junk heap?
Like an appendix, it had got sore and painful. It would
have been unnecessary if those young men had learned
what life is all about.

I have observed, coming up the long road, that the
man who is too great to learn is going downhill, looking
up at the sky, with banana peels in his path.

THE SUMMING UP 297

It seems to me that our own troubles are partly due
to the fact that our church had ceased to be an effective
fighting machine. It has had no emperor, no dictator to
hinder it. This also is true: it has lacked unity of pur-
pose and adequate generalship.

One has to make allowances for the Protestant faith
so foolishly divided by differences unimportant to the main
issue, which is the difference with Satan.

Still, the time of Beecher and Talmage and Chapin
and Storrs is past. The mighty wings of a great spirit
carried their words across the continent. They were able
organizers. They were fighting men. They used their
power to keep the politics of the city, the state and the
nation above reproach. An immoral book or a vicious play
would have had a fight with them and their committees.
As a reporter I knew all these men except Chapin and
I am sure that each was a civilizing force of a nation-wide
influence.

For years ministers have been expected to keep out
of politics. Unless they kept their hands off they were
likely to make enemies for the church. Indeed, enemies of
the church were the chief reason for its existence. It had
become afraid even of scandals in the city government.
Social conditions were going bad, but if there were any
special slip from grace, relatives in the church of those
concerned would be hurt. So ministers had to do long-
range fighting with sin as a general proposition, without
hitting anyone. They were shackled, and I am slow to
blame them.

But pussyfooting in the pulpit had become a fact.
Now, my friend Robert Norwood was a great preacher.
The last time I heard him, at St. Bartholomew's, he an-
nounced that he must have $90,000 within a month to
meet certain items of expense. It is such needs that weaken

298 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

the pulpiteer. He has to step carefully too carefully for
a fighting man. There was nothing like that in the days
of my youth.

When I was a boy in Canton, New York, the church
I went to was crowded every Sunday. So was that of the
Presbyterians across the park. Their ministers were men
of learning and eloquence. The last time I went to my
church there were seventeen people in the pews. That was
two years ago. I was told that there had been a like fall-
ing off in the attendance at the Presbyterian church. Are
the motorcar and the love of fun responsible for this great
change?

If character is really the big thing in this world of
ours, ought we not to be sure that our schools and col-
leges are doing their full duty in developing it? Should
not all our teachers be committed to the fundamental
ideals of America? We are a nation apart; have we not
learned that the national morals of Europe are not for us?

Why have we professors who endorse the philosophies
of Nietzsche and Freud?

Why are we graduating so many atheists and com-
munists? Is it because our boys are not well schooled in
sound Americanism? How can we sell that to them unless
it is well advertised in their hearing? I fear that in many
classrooms quite the opposite thing is advertised.

Let us give the young intellectual freedom, but our
professors should be hired to teach sound Americanism
and only that. The opinions of the young depend largely
on the teacher's work.

In spite of the fact that I feel as young as ever, I
have to admit that I am seventy-eight years of age. I
have spoken of many shadows in the f orepath of human-
ity, yet I am a cheerful optimist.

After all, rough and hard as my way has been, and

THE SUMMING UP

imperfect as it is, I like the world we live in. The great,
vital things filled with the sacrifice and wisdom of the
innumerable dead are not easily moved. Their foundations
are deep and wide. Above them the ages have slowly added
their deposits of wise revision which are like the gigantic
runes of geology.

Races disintegrate, nations rise and fall, believer and
unbeliever, saint and scoffer go quickly to the dust. The
praying, the playing, and the laughter sink into silence,
but the stronghold of the ages still lifts its towers and
still we hear the calling of its solemn bells.

It seems to be the one imperishable thing. It is no
joke. At times the great caravan turns away from it only
to come back, because it satisfies a need of the human
spirit.

28. LAST HORIZON

I HAVE used a phrase which I need to explain even for
my own benefit. It is "the growing revelation of life."

My ruling passion as a boy was, I judge, like that of
other boys: the love of my parents and my brothers and
sisters. They were the great people. I would have put my
life in peril for any of them. One by one they were taken
from me. My home seemed to be on still water, for a time,
and suddenly I discovered that it was only part of a
stream forever flowing onward. Slowly I learned that
there were candidates for my affection who did not be-
long to my family. I thought of the kindly, sympathetic
neighbors, and of the great men of the village who were
my heroes. There were also certain humble folk for whom
I had a real affection: a hired man and a hired woman of
the family who had shown me great kindness in my child-
hood; our Irish washerwoman who used to sing and dance
at the tub for my entertainment; Pat Devlin, a bighearted
man with whom I worked on a job as a boy of sixteen
to get money with which to go to a fourth of July cele-
bration. When I met him in after years, with a look of
joy he would say:

cc Ah, God bless ye, boy! Do ye mind the time we
worked together under Boss McCormick?"

The boss himself was a dear, good fellow. I acquired
a love for all kinds of people. There were, of course,
drunkards, loafers, and bad boys in the village. They
interested me and I knew them, but with a mother like

300

LAST HORIZON 3OI

mine I couldn't have been a scamp if I had tried. She
knew her job.

The mother of John Wesley was one of the most
successful mothers England has known. She had nineteen
children. Such mass production in a family must have an
able and a patient intellect to look after it through all
the changing stages of its development. The professor of
homiletics at Yale says, in one of his brilliant lectures, that
on the day when each child arrived at the age of five it
learned from its mother the alphabet and the meaning of
the word "must."

It is a highly important word. One has to learn its
meaning soon or late and the sooner the better. When I
forgot it I suffered, and generally a deeper pain than one
may get from a switch or a slipper.

When my mother and I were reading David Copper-
field together, I felt that I knew people like Ham and
Peggotty and Em'ly and Steerforth.

Fortunately, I had found a new passion. It was litera-
ture. The romantic passion had come along but, as it
insisted on my relinquishment of a big life plan, it had
to be put down. There was a struggle.

Three of my brothers and a sister had gone when I
left college and went to New York. What a sore spirit
was in me! Less than a year later my father passed the
barrier.

Sopn I was in the dawn of the first great revelation
of life. Its light shone brighter as I lived on. A boy's
family teaches him only the beginning of love. He must
discover other people who are quite as worthy of it.

Then came a great piece of good fortune. Often I
think that I owe to it most of the little I have done. I
found a wise and gentle young lady willing to bear with
my faults and to struggle along with me up the steep,

302 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

tiresome hill of poverty, and of work not to my liking.
That hill was so long and my errors so many that I did
not get to my chosen task until I was forty years of age
an unfortunate fact for me.

What an inspiration I found in my wife's help and
sympathy, and in the delightful homes of her making!
For forty years our love for each other grew. This is the
great fact in the whole matter. I would sooner have died
than have broken the faith we gave to each other.

She helped me on my way to the things of which I
have written.

Not long after our marriage I wrote this sentence,
now copied from one of my notebooks:

"Go find your brothers in the world and see that these
be many, for a man's strength is multiplied by the num-
ber of his brothers. 5 *

It suggested my study of the growing spirit of a man
in Darrel of the Blessed Isles.

The stream of life flows onward forever onward
and many are caught in its whirlpools and disappear. It
may even separate us from our savings or our wealth. One
can, if he will, get a fairly good map of this great river
and study its currents, rapids, and many points of peril
and be a reasonably successful navigator. He can get and
give help among those who are keeping their heads above
water near him.

There are even points in the stream which no one
could foresee. Here is a man who was picked up, after the
Titanic was near her doom, saying: "I was one of many
floating around in icy water and asking God for help.
Men and women were seizing each other and going down.
A man near me shouted, 'Brother, help me!' as he sank.
Suddenly what a change had come upon us! We had been

LAST HORIZON 303

so different the great and the humble but we were all
brothers now. Those tragic moments of suffering gave me
a better understanding of human life. Are we not all
brothers floating among the perpetual tragedies on the
great stream flowing toward eternity?"

I have found many brothers and my own. If they
had lived, could not have been kinder or more generous.

I am sorry for those so situated that they have not
known the courage, the kindness, and the generosity of
humble folk. This knowledge is a help in broadening one's
understanding and sympathies. I am not quite sure that the
church would approve my feeling that the love of God
Is the love of man.

I believe that the first thing God will want to know
about us is how many brothers we have found In this
world and what we have done for them. Probably He
will think those outside the church more important even
than those who are in the fold.

There is one master key which opens all doors. It
is not simply character or honor or religious ardor. Many
have these good things who do not possess the master key.
It is a spirit given to the love of humanity and having a
steadfast, enlightened will to serve it. It may be baffled
for a time, it may even win the crown of martyrdom, but
always and inevitably it lifts the soul that has it to master-
ful doing and wins its great reward. There, if anywhere,
one gets the help of God.

Young man, you may go in for politics, law, or
medicine, but without this will and spirit your work will
be small in spite of the fact that it may bring a large re-
ward in money. I would not have you think that I under-
value money. It is a common need, and Mr. Rockefeller
showed us how to make it a source of help and comfort to

304 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

his fellow men. How often I have seen it used for the ruin
of many a good man and his friends! I have seen it speed-
ing certain distinguished families down the long hill of
pleasure to nothingness. They were families founded on the
rock of patient toil.

One of the happiest old men I have known was Mr.
Rockefeller, often up to the most playful tricks with his
young great-grandchildren, at ninety-four. At ninety-
three he was still active in the direction of his great af-
fairs. He was then a keen-minded man. He would writhe
with merriment at a funny story.

He played six holes of golf a day, ate little, and
lived simply. Every evening after dinner he played, at
the dinner table, a game with numbered cards. The guests
and the members of the family each took a hand. Often
he would playfully toss dimes to certain players as a re-
ward for their skill.

Here was one of the very few who could show his
fellow men what to do and how to do it. William G. Sum-
ner said in one of his lectures that such a man takes rank
with the great generals of history.

As we grow old, what a change in our sense of values!
We still need money but it grows cheaper as age advances.
Our pleasures are simple and inexpensive. We have had
enough of feasting at the banquet. A tramp in the sun-
light with a jolly friend, a highball, a comfortable chair
with a good book, and we are content.

One often hears the warning: "You can't take it with
you," but the one and only big piece of property that
man may possess will surely go with him when he goes.
That is, a personality that has been a help to the world
in which it was made. If it be loved here, it will be loved
there even more.

LAST HORIZON 305

Surely the great hearts of Lincoln, Cardinal Newman,
and Sir Moses Montefiore are busy somewhere.

In time life gives us another revelation. We find that
traditions and proverbs have an undying truth in them,
while the young are apt to think of them as ''old-time
bunk."

Still, we old men know that riches and power depart
suddenly; that you marry in haste and repent at leisure;
that pride goes before a fall, and that a decent regard for
thrift would save many people an immense amount of
wretchedness. G. K. Chesterton once said that he had lived
to see dead proverbs come to life like the stone snakes of
Egypt. I suspect that the World War may have helped
to inspire this remark.

As to fear of the future, I think that the young are
afflicted with more of that trouble than the old. Their
future is full of uncertainty and peril. They need all the
courage they can get, for more or less discouragement
and despair must be met and overcome. So many that I
knew were turned into cannon fodder, so many have been
utterly wrecked by the perils of peace. For more than fifty
years they have been lying in their graves.

The young of a sensitive nature are afflicted by self-
consciousness, shyness, and often by the memory of their
gaucheries. They are often rash and they suffer much for
things they ought not to have done. They are likely to
be intolerant. We learn slowly, as the years flow by, how
easy it is to be wrong. We develop a gentle toleration even
for the misguided. The slow pace of history should give
us all as we grow old some little share of the divine pa-
tience.

If we grow old gracefully, our conceit departs. The
tyranny of convention relaxes its hold upon us. At last

306 FROM STORES OF MEMORY

we have the right to refuse to be bored and we approach
the last horizon with a far more cheerful courage than
did the gladiators of old Rome who, as they passed the
praetor, were wont to salute him and say:
ff Morituri te salutamm"

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